Two cuban deputy ministers, Marcelino Medina and Ileana Núñez, will visit Madrid this week.
Eva Cantón. Madrid.
With a thawing in Brussels and Washington, Spain does not want to be left behind in Cuba now that a slow but inevitable reform process is taking place on the island. Although officially the European Union’s so called Common Position is still in place, conditioning the political dialogue to the advancement of human rights, it is hoped that in two years negotiations to substitute this model with a normalised bilateral agreement will have come to an end.
Parallel to this, Havana’s relationships with other countries with which they maintain close historical ties, as is the case with Spain, are coming out of their lethargy.
The signal will be given this week in Madrid by the Cuban first vice-minister, Marcelino Medina González, who is leading the first political visit that Mariano Rajoy’s Executive has received from Cuba.
The cuban deputy minister of Foreign affairs will meet with the Secretary of State for Ibero-america in Madrid
According to diplomatic sources consulted by The Diplomat, Medina González will meet, on 27 June, with his counterpart, the Secretary of State for International Relations and for Ibero-America, Jesús Garía, who was also ambassador to Havana between 2001 and 2004 during José María Aznar’s presidency.
The Cuban vice minister’s visit has its origin in the one which was carried out in September 2013 by the Director General for Ibero-America, Pablo Gómez Olea who, with the pretext of preparing the Ibero-American Summit in Panama in October of that year, tested the ground in Havana for higher level contacts.
Also in September last year the head of the Spanish Diplomatic corps, José Manuel García-Margallo and the Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations, Bruno Rodríguez, coincided in New York at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
At that time the diplomatic tangle surrounding the “Carromero case” was coming to an end. Carromero was the leader of the PP’s New Generations, who was driving when an accident took place, killing dissidents Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero.
Cuba will present before the Chambers of Commerce its law on foreign investment
With those storm clouds out of the way, the economy is also looking to find its place and, one day before the arrival of the Cuban diplomat, the Madrid Chambers of Commerce will play host to a series of conferences about business and investment opportunities on the Island.
On this occasion it will be the Vice-minister of Foreign Commerce, Lleana Núñez, accompanied by another six government officials, who will present the new foreign investment law with which Raúl Castro’s regime hopes to attract about 2,500 million dollars per year.
