In a statement published on Friday on the blog of the Jose Marti-Greece Cultural Association, Papadimoulis expressed that lifting that six-decade-long sanctions regime should be a priority for US President Joe Biden, who in his electoral campaign promised reconsider it.

The EP vice president recalled that, in April 2019, then President Donald Trump tightened those measures, which were already unacceptable, in an attempt to stifle the Cuban economy, thus reversing the small positive step taken by the Barack Obama administration in 2015.

Papadimoulis, who is also a member of the European Parliamentary Group of Friendship with Cuba, affirmed that Trump’s actions further reduce the development potential of that small country and inhumanely affect the standard of living of the Cuban people.

The suffocating US blockade is an outdated and inhumane practice condemned every year for decades, almost unanimously, by the UN General Assembly, he stressed.

Papadimoulis called on President Biden to turn his words into actions as a priority, because that policy causes serious humanitarian and economic consequences every day, especially at this time when Cuba is affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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