CUBA This is the statement that Björn made at the press conference on the 12th of September 2025, the day before the Salvar a Cuba conference in Miami.
1. EU funding for the regime
In 2016, the European Union and Cuba signed a Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement, known as the PDCA. It was ratified by the European Parliament in 2017, and since then all EU member states, except Lithuania, have also ratified it. The Cuban regime ratified it as well. The intention was to bring EU–Cuba relations under a common framework. Within this framework, the EU was supposed to establish an annual human rights dialogue with Cuba, alongside several other political dialogues.
This was, of course, a naïve belief. The agreement has not led to improvements in the human rights situation in Cuba. On the contrary: today there are more than 1,400 political prisoners on the island. For over six decades, the communist dictatorship has denied its people the most basic civil and political freedoms.
The same regime has acted as a loyal Soviet and now Russian proxy, participating actively in foreign interventions from Angola to, most recently, Ukraine. It has also sought to undermine democracy across the region, playing a direct role in sustaining the dictatorships of Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, the EU continues to finance development projects that, in practice, strengthen the very institutions of repression. Currently, the EU funds around 80 projects in Cuba worth an estimated 155 million euros. These projects are directed to organizations controlled by the regime, often funneled through the UN system. Yet, the regime refuses to allow UN special rapporteurs on human rights to visit Cuba, meet with political prisoners, or engage freely with civil society.
The truth is that EU financing has served only to entrench tyranny. Billions of euros provided through the PDCA, Paris Club credit lines, and debt relief have not reached the Cuban people. They have financed the dictatorship that oppresses them.
Two and a half years ago, during the Swedish EU Presidency, I raised this issue with the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, asking whether he intended to push for a review of EU financing of development projects in Cuba. Later, I asked whether he would push for the suspension of the PDCA and an end to EU funding—both directly and indirectly through the UN system—for organizations controlled by the regime. Since then, the Swedish government has taken up this cause within the EU. Progress has been made, slowly, and other countries have joined the Swedish line. But we must be honest: the Cuban dictatorship still has its allies inside the European Union.
2. The need for a concerted US and EU policy to bring freedom to Cuba
If there is one lesson from the past six decades, it is that unilateral policies toward Cuba—whether from Washington or from Brussels—have not delivered freedom to the Cuban people. Fragmented approaches have allowed the regime to play one side against the other, securing resources and legitimacy from Europe while denouncing the United States, or vice versa.
What is needed today is a transatlantic strategy, rooted in the values of freedom and democracy. The United States and the European Union must align their policies and send a clear, united message: there will be no normalization, no financing, and no legitimacy for the Cuban dictatorship as long as it denies its people liberty.
This means coordinating sanctions, cutting off international financing for regime-controlled entities, and redirecting support to independent civil society, to political prisoners, to free media, and to Cuban entrepreneurs who are working outside of the regime’s control. It means making human rights and political freedom the central, non-negotiable condition for any engagement with Havana.
Only a concerted US–EU approach can close the loopholes that the regime has exploited for decades. Only a united transatlantic policy can generate the pressure necessary to bring about real change.
3. Building a world movement for freedom in Cuba
But even a strong transatlantic policy will not be enough on its own. The Cuban people need a global coalition for their freedom. The struggle for democracy in Cuba is not only a regional issue, nor a bilateral one—it is a civilizational struggle. It is about whether tyranny and repression will continue to prevail, or whether the universal principles of human dignity and liberty will triumph.
That is why we must build a worldwide movement for Cuban freedom—uniting democracies in Latin America, Europe, North America, and beyond. Civil society organizations, human rights defenders, parliamentarians, and governments must come together to support Cuba’s democrats.
Within the Hepatica Foundation, which I represent, we have already taken initiatives to gather democratic opposition movements across borders. Very soon, we will bring together the Cuban democratic opposition with their counterparts from Venezuela and Belarus, to exchange experiences and lessons learned. This may become the first step toward further strengthening the Cuban democratic movement—by connecting it with others who are fighting the same struggle against authoritarianism.
This means raising Cuba on the agenda of every international forum, from the UN to the OSCE, from the OAS to the Council of Europe. It means ensuring that Cuban voices in exile and on the island are heard. It means building networks of solidarity that are as global as the networks of repression that Havana itself has sustained for decades.
The Cuban people are not alone. Their cause is the cause of freedom-loving people everywhere. Just as we stood with the captive nations of Eastern Europe during the Cold War, we must now stand with Cuba until its people can live free in their own land.
BJÖRN SÖDER
Member of Swedish Parliament
