Recent visits to Havana by EU aid minister Karel de Gucht and by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos both addressed the issue of the European Union’s “common position” on Cuba, but from different sides. Moratinos wants to be entirely rid of the policy; de Gucht reinforced that it would only come down with concrete gestures from Cuba regarding improved human rights.

The EU common position, as adopted in 1996, is ”to encourage a process of transition to pluralist democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, via constructive engagement with the Cuban Government” (see here for further explanation). At the time it was passed, Spain’s Prime Minister (Jose Maria Aznar) was the one leading the push behind the measure. Now Spain has pledged to work to eliminate the common position, making a number of other EU countries uneasy. Moratinos affirmed Spain’s intentions while in Havana, and last Thursday, Spain’s Secretary of State for the EU did the same, noting that the EU maintains normal relations with other countries that are not “paragons of democracy.”

Spain may not have the full support of other EU countries—many have demanded explanation of what Spain plans as a replacement for the common position, and the EU aid minister asserted while in Havana this week that replacing the common position would happen only with a consensus that on Cuba’s part requires “gestures with respect to human rights”—but it does have certain power: Spain will hold the rotating presidency of the EU for the first half of 2010.

Yet always overshadowing its relations with other countries will be Cuba’s relationship with the United States, and indeed, the U.S.-Cuba impasse tends to put the EU in an awkward position on this. With a high level of mutual distrust and a history of U.S.-funded subversion and assassination attempts on the island, Cuba claims that it cannot trust the dissidents and regime opponents that exist in the nation. Therefore press is restricted, access to the Internet restricted, opponents are jailed, and so forth, in the name of protecting the nation. Without further progression in the level of trust between the United States and Cuba, it is unlikely that such conditions will change.

Ultimately, the gestures sought by the EU might only be as fast in coming as the changes in the US-Cuba relationship.

The newest bill in Congress to tear down the Cuba travel ban—the freedom to travel to Cuba act—has a greater chance of passing in this Congress than in previous years, as we’ve noted before. Several factors contribute: visiting Cuba is now being viewed as an issue of the inalienable rights of Americans to travel; the travel issue has been separated from the larger question of the embargo; and Cuban-Americans that have previously strongly opposed any measures of opening to Cuba have now softened their stance.

In fact, a recent poll by Miami-based Bendixen & Associates, the largest Hispanic polling firm, found that 59% of all Cuban Americans think the ban on all U.S. travel to Cuba should be removed. Even more surprising, 48% of older and more conservative Cuban exiles support lifting the prohibition, up from 32% in 2002.

In light of such changes, the bill is gaining more and more support. In the House, it has 180 co-sponsors. And the measure is supported by such diverse actors as the travel industry, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, human-rights groups like Human Rights Watch and policy think tanks like Freedom House, the D.C.-based Cuba Study Group and the Brookings Institution. TIME describes the current probability of ending the travel ban here.

On the subject of potential and actual increased travel between Cuba and the United States: Fidel Castro wrote last week that increased U.S. travelers to the island have caused the spread of the H1N1 virus. This is the first time in years that a Cuban official has made a complaint against travel restriction loosening, although Castro did also acknowledge that the effect was not the intention of the U.S. administration.

A timely event: this Friday at Boston University (from 1 to 5 PM), leading political players and academics will debate Cuba policy, including the travel ban. Senator John Kerry, Congressman Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, Harvard professor Jorge Dominguez and BU professors Susan Eckstein and Paul Hare will all participate. The event is open to the public, but with limited seating: see here.

Spain’s Prime Minister, Jose Luis Zapatero, visited the White House on October 13, soon before the Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, paid a visit to Raúl Castro in Havana on October 19. According to Spain’s El País, President Obama used this opportunity to ask Spain to deliver a message to the Cuban regime.

From Reuters:

“Have (Moratinos) tell the Cuban authorities we understand that change can’t happen overnight, but down the road, when we look back at this time, it should be clear that now is when those changes began,” Obama told Zapatero, according to diplomatic sources quoted by El Pais.

“We’re taking steps, but if they don’t take steps too, it’s going to be very hard for us to continue,” Obama said.

There is a lot of history among the three countries (think colonialism, fight for independence, Spanish-American War in 1898), but Obama is right to see Spain’s good current relationship with Cuba as another avenue by which to court Havana.

From the Associated Press:

“The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly condemned the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, an annual ritual that highlights global opposition to the policy.

“This year’s vote was 187-3 in opposition to the embargo, up from 185-3 last year, with only Israel and the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau supporting the United States. Micronesia and the Marshall Islands abstained both years.

“It was the 18th year in a row that the General Assembly has taken up the symbolic measure, with Washington steadily losing what little support it once had.”

Cuba’s official statement on the embargo, available on the “Cuba vs. Bloqueo 2009″ website (here), details what it considers the direct effects of the embargo on the Cuban population. The report argues:

The economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba for the last 50 years is the most serious kind of cruel and inhumane policy, lacking legality and legitimacy, and deliberately designed to cause hunger, illnesses and desperation in the Cuban populace. (Note: this is my own translation from Spanish)

The report goes on to call the embargo an “act of genocide” and an “act of economic war,” according to generally accepted international conventions.

The United Nations General Assembly will vote tomorrow on whether to condemn the U.S. embargo of Cuba, and the question is not whether the resolution will pass (it will), but by how much this year (last year was 185 countries for the resolution, 3 against), and whether the Obama administration will react to what will inevitably be an expression of overwhelming international opposition to the policy.

The Environmental Defense Fund is sending U.S. scientists to Cuba today to discuss ways to eliminate overfishing, protect coral reefs, conserve coastal areas, and tap potential ocean energy. Last month, EDF secured Treasury licenses for Cuban scientists to come to Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, and this is a similar exchange—in the opposite direction.

Ocean waters and marine resources are shared by both countries to some extent. So the discussions that will take place this week on how to protect and harness the benefits of these resources while mitigating and/or eliminating the costs associated with human interaction with the environment only make sense. And as Daniel Whittle of EDF points out, “Fishing, coastal development, and offshore oil and gas exploration in Cuba can have impacts in the United States, and vice-versa. The sooner we work together to manage shared resources and find solutions common problems, the sooner we’ll see benefits for the people, the environment and the economy in both countries.”

In fact, EDF holds that the healthy maintenance of Cuba’s coastal waters are vital to the well being of fisheries and fishing communities along the southeastern coast of the United States. With 4,200 islets and keys, Cuba supports reef fish like snapper and grouper, as well as other marine life (manatees, turtles and dolphins, for example). And Cuba and the United States share a deep water coral system, recently discovered, that stretches from the island to North Carolina.

The two nations may be estranged, but environmental resources and threats know no borders. Organizations in both countries are acting accordingly.

Today, a look back at the still early U.S. relationship with post-revolutionary, Soviet-aligned Cuba. The piece from Politico below details the beginning of the Cuban missile crisis, whose anniversary is today. The main enemy in this story is the Soviet Union, but the intertwining of that country so closely with the regime in Cuba made geographical proximity a terrifying new consideration, multiplying the potential threat posed by Cold War sentiments.

I also include footage of JFK’s address to the nation on October 22, 1962, officially announcing new policy.

“On this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy imposed a U.S. naval blockade of Cuba after U.S. spy planes found Soviet missile sites on the Communist-ruled island. In a televised speech, the president said the medium-range nuclear weapons arrayed at nearly completed bases were capable of striking major American cities, including Washington.

“The president said the United States would not exclude using military force to end what he called a ‘clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace.’ Thus opened the public phase of the Cuban missile crisis. For the next six days, it threatened to precipitate a nuclear war between the world’s two superpowers. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had advised Kennedy to order a ’surgical’ strike to take out the missiles, put U.S. military forces around the world on DEFCON 2, the highest military alert ever reached in the postwar era.

“On Oct. 26, as White House advisers weighed whether to attack Cuba, the Soviets proposed removing the missiles in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade the island nation. The next day, however, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, under pressure from his military brass, upped the ante by calling for the dismantling of U.S. missile bases in Turkey.

“The crisis ended peacefully on Oct. 28 when the Soviets began to dismantle their missile sites. In November, Kennedy called off the blockade. By year’s end, the missiles had left Cuba. Soon afterward, the United States quietly removed its missiles from Turkey.

“Although the crisis was initially portrayed as a clear-cut U.S. victory, it also caused the Kremlin to order a massive nuclear buildup. By the 1970s, the Soviet Union, newly armed with large numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking any American city, had achieved nuclear parity with the U.S. Successive administrations have honored Kennedy’s no-invasion pledge.”

(Original piece here)

PREMIERE:

Adrian Baschuk’s “Cuba: Waiting for a Revolution” premiered tonight at 10/9c on Current TV. Baschuk, a Vanguard correspondent, reportedly visited Cuba to see “how hard life really is there and investigate whether or not there exists any possibility of regime change.” The thesis: frustration with persistent difficulty and worsening economic prospects in Cuba might just incite a counterrevolution driven by youth.

I do not think the probability of a new revolution in Cuba is very high at all, but I was looking forward to seeing what they would present. Ultimately, I think they were forcing the point. They chose a hypothesis before leaving for Havana and incorporated all evidence into their already established schema, instead of reflecting objectively on the situation on the island as they took it all in.

Still, the piece covers a lot of bases, shows really excellent (not to mention rare) footage, and includes a number of impressive and insightful interviews. It’s worth the 20 minutes it takes to watch, below:

Business between Cuba and four of its top five trading partners has declined sharply in 2009 in a painful reflection of the island’s economic crisis. China, Spain, Canada and the United States all reported 20 to 50 percent declines in exports to and (minus the USA) imports from Cuba.

Percent change in Imports from/Exports to Cuba, through August 2009 (Spain figures are through July)

China     Spain     Canada    United States

Change in value of imports          -48.2       -24          -55.7            (n/a)

Change in value of exports          -12.7        -43          -52.4             -23

Venezuela, Cuba’s number one trading partner and supplier of oil, did not have figures available to Reuters. However, analysts assume that its value of exports to the island will have dropped considerably as well, from a lofty $5.3 billion in 2008 (this was more than eight times the value of second-place China’s exports to Cuba), at least due to the fall in oil prices.

As noted last week, telecommunications companies from the United States were in limbo on the question of doing business in Cuba: the Obama administration had given them the green light, but Cuba remained silent. Only when permission was given by both sides would they be able to forge ahead with ambitious plans for laying cables from Florida to the island.

But the international operations director from the state telecom company (ETECSA) announced Saturday in an official government newscast that American companies would only be granted access to the island after outstanding trade and legal grievances are resolved. Such a prerequisite could be a long way off yet. The two particulars she named as needing to be addressed were (1) some $160 million in frozen funds that the U.S. government seized from ETECSA in 2000, and (2) trade restrictions imposed by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act, which forces Cuba to pay U.S. companies through third countries, incurring additional transaction fees.

Unfortunately, with respect to the first issue, the two sides are unlikely to reach agreement. The funds were seized as payment to Cuban American families whose relatives were shot down over Cuba in 1996. Cuba says the funds were stolen, but U.S. courts ruled in favor of the families’ wrongful death case against the Castro government.

Still, the 110 mile cable from Key West, as proposed by TeleCuba Communications, is a much easier and sensible option for Cuba than the 966 mile-long cable from Venezuela that is currently the only other prospect on the table. Perhaps that will move Cuba to compromise sooner than might otherwise be the case.