After 54 years Cuba and the United States finally re-established diplomatic relations in July 2015. There is little doubt that this “fall of the Caribbean Wall” has been influenced by China’s growing presence in the Americas and in Cuba in particular; Latin American pressure in favour of bilateral normalisation; and in particular, a greater pragmatism on the part of both Washington and especially Florida, with its large community of native Cubans, and in Havana itself.
The European Union, as a whole Cuba’s main investor and its second largest trading partner, now has a complex game to play to remain a major actor in the country and the region, since the United States will most certainly recover much of the ground lost by its inflexibility towards Cuba over half a century, and because there are other partners who have an increasingly important presence. To achieve this the EU has a number of elements in favour, such as the “European social model” with less social inequality and basically more effective than the Anglo-Saxon liberal capitalism world; obvious economic complementarities; and its more understanding attitude, over the past decades, towards the regime which originated in the revolution of 1959. Among the keys to a new relationship are possible projects of triangular cooperation with Cuba in the Caribbean, which could be interesting for all participants, such as in the extreme case of unmet needs in Haiti, a country still in a difficult convalescence five and a half years after its apocalyptic earthquake. Other synergies have great potential, such as between Spain and Cuba, its former “Pearl of the Antilles”, or between French overseas departments and Haiti, linked by their complex historical ties with France.
The European Union, as a whole, Cuba’s main investor and its second largest trading partner, now has a complex game to play to remain a major player in the country and the region, since the United States will most certainly recover much of the ground lost.
China is now the island’s second largest trading partner, and its presence is surely one of the key factors behind the Washington decision. It is increasingly present in the Caribbean and particularly in Cuba, with which it has more than tripled its trade since the turn of the millennium and where joint projects and Chinese investments are fast increasing, as was illustrated by President Xi Jinping’s trip to Cuba, along with a representative delegation of about 40 large companies, in July 2014. Highlights in particular are oil exploration, scientific cooperation, public transport and agriculture. Chinese tourists have also started arriving in rapidly increasing numbers. China is now the island’s second largest trading partner, and its presence is surely one of the key factors behind the decision of Washington.
One might be tempted to think that Europe and China could, in various sectors, being partners as well as rivals, for example in the crucial area of energy: its excessively high cost is a serious obstacle to the development of the Caribbean, which could be largely offset by increased use of renewable energies, among others, with cheaper Chinese solar panels. Cuba, where the Chinese model not unjustifiably represents a major attraction for its own reforms in the pragmatic era of Raul Castro, may well try to combine the lessons, exchanges and support from the “Middle Kingdom” with some European ingredients, such as more liberal political systems or an economy with less inequality and significant advances in public transport, renewable energy and technologies.
So, in several areas Chinese and European cooperation could be walking a parallel path, a little different from the American way of life which appeals to many people in Cuba. As Anthony Maingot, a Trinidadian specialist, wrote years ago “nowhere else in the world of power are asymmetries so visibly exposed as in the Caribbean, with its love-hate relationship with the United States.” This also applies perfectly to Cuba, the largest and most populated of the Caribbean islands, and perhaps today no less than in 1959…
China is now the island’s second largest trading partner, and its presence is surely one of the key factors behind the Washington decision.
Progress has been made, without doubt, in the ties between Europe and Latin America in recent decades, with Latin America’s more dynamic entry into international trade, its booming exports and the rise of its companies, particularly several multinational Brazilian companies now present in many countries. But there still remains a fundamentally “North-South” structure in the trade of commodities in exchange for industrial goods, even in the case of countries like Brazil and Argentina. Cuba has achieved significant progress in biotechnology and other areas but still exports mainly nickel, tobacco and other commodities.
What is certain is that there will be lots of opportunities for cooperation in various fields, and European leaders seem to have understood it that way: a few weeks after the announcement of the thaw with the United States, the EU’s head of foreign affairs visited the island, followed a few months later by the President of France and the German Minister of Foreign Affairs. There is a sort of race towards Cuba, where there have long been many Spanish investments, and by others, especially in the hotel sector, but there may be many more to come…
“We have different political and economic systems, and concepts of democracy and freedom of opinion and the press,” said the German minister in July in Havana, “but we are seeing in Cuba an openness that we want to accompany actively, and with our own experiences of transformation, we can offer something to.” This sounds like a significant reversal of the old “common position” of the EU, adopted in 2003, that linked cooperation closely to its assessment of the human rights situation in Cuba.
Of course, there are other actors on the Cuban scene, particularly the continental Latin American countries. A few decades ago, only Mexico maintained diplomatic and other relations with Cuba: today all the countries in the region do. Venezuela has had a crucial role in the last 15 years as “rich brother” and oil supplier, with Brazil as an essential partner in areas such as the construction of a major modern port near Havana and, together with many others, exploring offshore oil reserves. The crises in both countries reflect serious difficulties, and Cuba will have accepted the US approaches also –and perhaps above all– due to the seriously weakened positon of its key Venezuelan friend. However, Europe should also consider the desirability of finding new forms of cooperation that could take advantage of existing opportunities in all these countries and project a future of more imaginative cooperation for the benefit of all partners. If there has been -and still is- Venezuelan oil in exchange for Cuban doctors, maybe tomorrow there can also be adapted European technology, particularly in renewable energies and energy-saving equipment, in exchange of Latin American natural resources and other elements such as Cuban biotechnology and tropical medicine. For host countries, new, more profitable forms of tourism may also be possible, today one of the two major sources of foreign exchange in Cuba, along with the remittances from emigrants, and from the rest of the region…
The formation in 2011 of the new regional organization, CELAC, which brings together all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, should promote a constructive dialogue between the two blocs. This could also be based on major approaches between the two regions in the cultural and university sphere; regions which in general share a number of common values and legal-political concepts, as is quite rightly stressed.
The formation in 2011 of the new regional organization, CELAC, which brings together all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, should promote a constructive dialogue between the two blocs. This could also be based on already initiated major cooperation between the two regions in the cultural and university sphere, as both regions share in general a number of common values and legal-political concepts, as is often and quite rightly stressed.
