The EU on Wednesday reiterated its opposition to European firms and citizens being caught out by US sanctions on Cuba, calling on Washington to adhere to a 1998 agreement to grant a consistent waiver for EU companies and citizens.
“The EU reiterates a strong opposition to the extraterritorial application of unilateral restrictive measures which is considers contrary to international law,” a spokesman
for the EU executive told a briefing in Brussels.
The EU has serious concerns over the decision by US President Donald Trump to end the practice of suspending on a rotating six-month basis a section of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act that would allow such suits, principally from Cuban-Americans.
The decision also deals a severe blow to Havana’s efforts to draw foreign investment to the island and comes as Trump steps up pressure to isolate embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who is holding power with help from other countries, including Cuba, China and Russia.
Spain, which has large investments in hotels and other tourism-related industries on the island, was the first to react. A senior government official told The Associated Press that Madrid would ask the EU to challenge the US move in the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Businesses from Canada, France and the UK among other countries also conduct business in properties nationalised after Fidel Castro took power in 1959.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton is expected to discuss the new policy during a midday speech Wednesday in Miami, which is home to thousands of exiles and immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
The speech at the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association is to be delivered on the 58th anniversary of the United States’ failed 1961 invasion of the island, an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government.
The 1996 act gave Americans the right to sue the mostly European companies that operate out of hotels, tobacco factories, distilleries and other properties that Cuba nationalized after Fidel Castro took power. The act even allows lawsuits by Cubans who became US citizens years after their properties were taken.
Countries with large investments in Cuba have ferociously protested the law and threatened to sue in the WTO if Washington tries to interfere with the business ties between Cuba and another sovereign nation.
“The extraterritorial application of the US embargo is illegal and violates international law,” said Alberto Navarro, EU ambassador to Cuba. “I personally consider it immoral. For 60 years the only thing that’s resulted from the embargo is the suffering of the Cuban people.”
US airlines and cruise lines that bring hundreds of thousands of travellers to Cuba each year appear to be exempt from the key provision of the Helms-Burton Act.
Every US president since Bill Clinton has suspended the key clause to avoid those trade clashes and a potential mass of lawsuits that would prevent any future settlement with Cuba over nationalised properties. Cuba has said it is willing to reimburse the owners of confiscated properties, but only if the communist government is also reimbursed for billions of dollars in damages generated by the six-decade US trade embargo.