Relations between the EU and Cuba

4.12.2003

ORAL QUESTION H-0783/03
for Question Time at the part-session in December 2003
pursuant to Rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure
by Ioannis Patakis
to the Council

At the meeting of the EP Committee on Foreign Affairs of 25 November, the Italian Foreign Minister and President-in-Office of the Council, replying to a question by a Danish MEP as to whether the EU Council had at its recent meeting considered the question of political prisoners in Cuba, stated that this had not been the case since it had just discussed the matter with Colin Powell, who had indicated that the USA was studying ways of resolving the problem which it believed would also satisfy the EU. For this reason the EU was awaiting the solution to be proposed by the USA.

 

On the basis of what principle of international law is the Council empowered to intervene in Cuban internal affairs? Has the EU entrusted to the USA the question of its relations with Cuba? Has it transferred to the USA some of the responsibility for implementing its foreign policy to the USA and on the basis of what decision?

 

 

Tabled: 04.12.2003

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