(P) Cuba in Conversation | IHEID 30.11.

2023, 18:00

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ALBERT HIRSCHMAN CENTRE ON DEMOCRACY

24 November 2022

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CUBA IN CONVERSATION

A new podcast explores the relationship between Cuba and the European Union.

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By the early nineties, after the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union
which left Cuba isolated and without its main source of economic support, many
thought that the Cuban regime would not survive. However, more than three decades
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later, the regime is still there.

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The current regime does not neglect or hide the radical changes taking place in the
global and domestic scenarios. Further, it is open to exploring these changes and the
new paths that these open to the country, at least in terms of opening the economy to
the national and international private sectors. From a political and institutional
approach, in 2008, Fidel Castro stepped down after almost half a century in power. His
brother Raúl replaced him until 2018, when he also stepped down. Then, Miguel Díaz
Canel assumed the executive power, launching a constitutional replacement with
massive popular participation and tight elite control. Given that the legitimacy of the
government is based, historically, on the mystique of the revolution rather than on any
current political process, this generational change has had an impact on the
population’s perception of the government, which has become increasingly critical.
Indeed, from a socio-economical perspective, while the country has introduced
substantive reforms to open the economy and towards monetary unification, this has
not helped to improve the difficult living conditions. Inflation has been estimated by
non-official sources at 500%, while shortages of basic goods and a fall in economic
growth are alarming indicators.

Perhaps unsurprisingly when one considers Latin American trends, for the first time in
decades on the Island, protests spread along the country in 2021. Many more Cubans
opted for migration recently. From an international perspective, the Obama
administration in the United States was unable to end the embargo, and, later, Donald
Trump’s administration further hardened the measures against Cuba. Then, the
pandemic and the war against Ukraine initiated by Russia also worsened the global
situation. Is in this dynamic context that the European Union (EU) is looking to
establish a special relationship with Cuba, expressed in the Political Dialogue and
Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) signed by both in December 2016. Our new podcast
series Cuba in Conversation analyses this myriad of transformations with a focus on the
relationship between Cuba and the EU.

Cuba in Conversation is addressed to disseminate the main findings and outcomes of

the Jean Monnet Network Europe-Cuba Forum. The Forum is an initiative that began
in 2017 and involves a consortium of 11 leading institutions with consolidated
experience in researching Cuban affairs and relations between Europe and Cuba. The
main coordinator of the project is the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs
(CIDOB) and the Albert Hirschman Centre is a member of the network.

The three first episodes in this series are connected to the thematic cluster in the
project: economy, institutions and international relations (in English) and the last one
summarizes findings in Spanish.

Conducted by Yanina Welp and produced by Michelle Olguin and Valentina Saponara.

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Trailer: Cuba has experienced a myriad of reforms as well as multicausal crises and
tensions in the past years. The trailer introduces the main focus on the podcast series.

Episode 1: Cuba, then and now. A constitutional replacement produced with massive
citizens participation was conducted. The new constitution was ratified in a
referendum in February 2019. However, waves of protests emerged shortly after. Which
kind of changes introduced the new constitution and to what extent has contributed
to solving the economic, social, and political deficits observed in the Island?
Participants: Bert Hoffmann (GIGA-Germany) and Rosa María Voghon (University of La
Habana-Cuba, independent researcher).

Episode 2: A Socialism of the XXI century? After more than a decade of economic
reforms with difficult implementation and contradictory results, in 2021 was launched
the so-called ‘Ordering Task’ (Tarea Ordenamiento) that involves monetary unification
and, among others, price readjustments, increases in salaries and pensions, as well as
the expansion of activities authorized to be carried out on self-employment basis. How
is the economy of the Island changing and with which consequences? Participants:
Elisa Botella (University of Salamanca-Spain), Denisse Delgado Vásquez (University of
Massachusetts-United States), and Tamarys Bahamonde (Cuban Economist, currently
at the University of Delaware).

Episode 3: To support or to sanction? There are back and forths and ups and downs
in the relations between Cuba and the European Union. The global order is in
movement, in economic terms with the growing relevance of Asia, and in political
terms with the increasing relevance of autocratizing countries and nationalist
ideologies that add new challenges to international democratic governance. This leads
to permanent tensions in the multilateral system. How all of this shape the Cuba-EU
relationship? Participants: Susanne Gratius (Autonomous University of Madrid-Spain),
Eduardo Perera (Cuban independent researcher) and Laurence Whithead (Nuffield
College, Oxford University, UK).

Episode 4: Cuba, Quo Vadis? The three preceding episodes, in English, focused on
analyzing the economic and political reforms that have taken place in Cuba and the
relations between the island and the European Union. Today we will address in Spanish
a summary of the topics covered in the podcast, all based on the years of work in the
Forum. Participants: Anna Ayuso (CIDOB-Spain), José Choffre (University of Alicante-
Spain) and Raynier María Pellón (CIPI, Cuba).

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