Luis Ayllón
The Spanish government resumed high-level contacts with the Cuban authorities yesterday, after a crisis arose in November last year over the Castro regime’s decision to withdraw accreditation from EFE journalists in Havana.
As reported on his Twitter account, the Sate Secretary for Ibero-America, the Caribbean and Spanish in the World, Juan Fernández-Trigo, held a meeting yesterday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid with the Cuban First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gerardo Peñalver Portal.
Fernández Trigo limited himself to indicating that in yesterday’s meeting they reviewed “the state of bilateral relations and various issues on the regional and international agenda”.
Solvent sources consulted by The Diplomat indicated that Peñalver, who is currently on a tour of several countries, asked to meet with Fernández Trigo, with whom he had already held a meeting in Rome in October 2021, during an Italy-Latin America conference.
The same sources indicated that, in the conversation, the State Secretary had insisted to his Cuban colleague on the need for the government in Havana to put an end to the policy of mass arrests of dissidents, which has intensified since the protests on the island in July last year.
This is the first political contact between the two countries in recent months, after relations were strained by the decision of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s government to withdraw the accreditations of journalists from the Efe news agency who were working in Havana. The pro-government Cuban press accused the Spanish news agency of encouraging the protests called for 15 November last year by the opposition platform Archipiélago.
The Spanish government summoned the Cuban Chargé d’Affaires in Madrid to protest against the measure and demand the return of the journalists’ accreditation. The Foreign Minister himself, José Manuel Albares, reiterated the demand to his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez, during a conversation held on 26 November in the framework of the meeting of Ibero-American foreign ministers in Santo Domingo. In February of this year, Cuba proceeded to reinstate accreditation for journalists.
In any case, since the crises of November 2021, relations have been at a political low, although Spain responded last August by sending 27 tonnes of medicines and medical supplies to alleviate the consequences of the serious fire in a fuel depot in Matanzas, in western Cuba, through the Humanitarian Aid Office of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).
Foreign Minister Rodríguez met with the Spanish Ambassador in Havana, Ángel Martín Peccis, to thank him for the aid sent by our country, valued at some 80,000 euros.
Relations between Spain and Cuba remain at very low levels, despite the fact that during his trip to Havana in November 2018, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez agreed with Díaz-Canel to hold annual contacts alternating between Madrid and Havana, headed by ministers or secretaries of state of both nations.
However, this mechanism for formal bilateral consultations has not been implemented and contacts have been limited to meetings between foreign ministers or deputy foreign ministers, taking advantage of international meetings or trips to other places.
