Washington D.C. – The Poblete Dispatches, July 29, 2026
The EU and Sweden’s decision to seek an enhanced dialogue with Eritrea, while canceling their continued engagement with Cuba, suggests a clear double standard. Sussanne and Caroline discuss how the decision raises even more questions given the fact that the Eritrean regime refuses to release Swedish and EU citizen Dawit Isaak, who has been unlawfully imprisoned in Eritrea for close to 25 years.
Mr. Isaak’s family has received no credible proof of life, nor an update on his health or location, despite the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Maria Malmer Stenergard, calling for Mr. Isaak’s immediate release on humanitarian grounds almost nine months ago.
By Susanne Berger, Caroline Edelstam
Things have not been going smoothly between Cuba and the European Union lately. Over the past decade, the EU has become one of Cuba’s most important international partners. However, European representatives recently sounded the alarm about the lack of progress with regard to Cuba’s grim human rights record and the country’s active support for Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.
This past January, the European Parliament adopted an amendment [submitted by the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR)] to discontinue the current EU-Cuba Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA). On June 18th, the EU Parliament voted to pass a resolution to cancel the PDCA and to sanction Cuba’s titular leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, unless meaningful democratic and economic reforms are introduced.
The vote was mainly performative; however, as international human rights attorney and Cuba expert Jason Poblete has pointed out, it left key provisions intact, such as the so-called Blocking Statute (Council Regulation 2271/96), which protects European companies doing business with Cuba. The statute literally “blocks” the 1996 US Helms-Burton Act, which strengthened the US embargo against the Cuban regime.
The PDCA, which remains in force, has been controversial since its inception in 2016. It replaced what was known as the EU “Common Position” on Cuba, originally adopted in 1996 (and updated in 2008). This earlier agreement based the future of EU-Cuba relations on the country’s visible movement towards democracy and respect for international human rights standards.
