The 27 EU member states with headquarters in Brussels set a position regarding the report drawn up by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the request of the United Nations General Assembly in its 2019 resolution about the necessity to put an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington against Cuba.

In its assessment, the EU stated that the US unilateral measures against Cuba violate the regulations accepted by the countries for international trade and insisted on the extraterritorial nature of the blockade, expressed among others by the Torricelli Act in 1992 and Helms-Burton Act in 1996.

Brussels also underlined in the report sent to Guterres the economic impact of the blockade against Cuba and the standard of living of its inhabitants, including in the humanitarian field.

The Donald Trump administration (2017-2021) adopted 243 measures to reinforce the siege aimed at suffocating the Caribbean nation, 55 of them taken amid a pandemic, decisions that remain active five months after his successor, Joe Biden, took office.

Biden promised during the election campaign to reverse several of those measures.

On June 23, the United Nations General Assembly will debate and vote on a new draft resolution on the necessity that the United States lifts the blockade against Cuba, a text similar to that approved in that multilateral forum for 28 years since 1992.

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