What changed

B100285/2026

B100290/2026

European Parliament resolution on the political repression and humanitarian situation in Cuba

(2026/2735(RSP))

– having regard to its previous resolutions on the situation in Cuba, in particular those of 19 September 2024 on the case of José Daniel Ferrer García in Cuba, of 29 February 2024 on the critical situation in Cuba, and of 12 July 2023 on the state of the EU-Cuba PDCA in the light of the recent visit of the High Representative to the island,

The European Parliament,

– having regard to the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Cuba, of the other part, signed in December 2016, and which has provisionally applied since 1 November 2017, in particular to the suspension clause under Article 85(3)(b) thereof,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Cuba,

– having regard to the consent given by Parliament to the PDCA on 5 July 2017, on the condition of Cuba improving the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the country,

– having regard to the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime (EU Magnitsky Act) of 7 December 2020,

– having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Cuba is a party,

– having regard to the monthly report of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Prisoners Defenders of 14 May 2026, which covers April 2026,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas the situation in Cuba is extremely dire, marked by poverty, repression and a huge number of political prisoners; whereas Cuba is under a one-party regime that has endured for more than 67 years; whereas the country faces an economic crisis, an energy emergency, with blackouts that can last up to 22 hours a day in many provinces, and the collapse of an economic and political model based on immobility, repression and resistance to change as its sole narrative, amid shortages of food, water and medicine and the despair of the population, with constant protests in the form of demonstrations and ‘pot-banging’ (cacerolazo), to which the regime responds with detentions and repression as a means of punishment, intimidation and threats;

A. whereas the island of Cuba currently suffers from a systemic lack of fuel, electricity, water, food and medicines; whereas the island is facing a severe public health crisis driven by an outbreak of arboviral diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and oropouche; whereas deaths resulting from these diseases are being falsely attributed by the Cuban regime to underlying conditions such as diabetes, pneumonia or hypertension in order to manipulate data;

B. whereas, according to the NGO Prisoners Defenders, Cuba held a record 1 260 political prisoners at the end of April 2026, including 14 minors, some of whom were being held in maximum-security prisons alongside adults, as well as 142 women and 449 detainees in seriously ill health; whereas this NGO has documented systematic torture, sexual violence and death threats against detainees;

B. whereas the EU allocated EUR 50 million in development cooperation to Cuba in the period 2014-2021, and earmarked EUR 125 million for the 2021-2027 period; whereas the purpose of this contribution was partially to reinforce cooperation in biotechnology, health and the fight against infectious diseases; whereas the EU mobilised nearly EUR 6 million for disaster preparedness and emergency response in Cuba in 2025 alone; whereas this has not resulted in an improvement in the public health crisis;

C. whereas, in their daily lives, ordinary Cubans face visits to hospitals without basic medicines, where patients are told to bring their own supplies, alongside chronic shortages of food and water and hours-long queues, while many essential goods are sold only in foreign-currency stores beyond the reach of those in receipt of ordinary state wages;

C. whereas Cuba’s communist regime controls the island’s entire kleptocratic economy and the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces directly control at least 40 % of the country’s economy through the business mega conglomerate GAESA; whereas, according to the US Department of State, GAESA’s revenues are estimated to be more than three times the budget of the Cuban state, and it is likely that the conglomerate controls up to USD 20 billion in illicit assets;

D. whereas cumulative inflation over the past four years exceeds 500 % and state salaries are equivalent to between USD 15 and 25 a month at the black-market rate, which is the only realistic rate on the island; whereas in October 2024 the national electricity system collapsed completely for several days, leaving 11 million people without power;

D. whereas the regime is clearly misusing EU aid cooperation while the Cuban people suffer from hunger and diseases; whereas European taxpayers must never subsidise autocratic and totalitarian regimes;

E. whereas Cuba today imports more than 70 % of the food it consumes, despite it being a tropical country with fertile soil that once was one of the world’s largest sugar producers; whereas this collapse is the direct result of decades of collectivised, state-controlled agriculture and an unproductive and inefficient economic system;

E. whereas, despite the Cuban people’s dire material circumstances, the regime’s close military cooperation with the EU’s systemic rivals continues unabated; whereas this cooperation has endangered European security; whereas Cuban mercenaries have engaged in acts of sabotage within EU territory, most recently in Lithuania; whereas Cuban mercenaries are also supporting Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine;

F. whereas Cuba, the only constitutionally imposed one-party state, constitutes an anti-democratic anomaly in the Latin American region;

F. whereas respect for human rights is non-existent in Cuba, with over 1 000 political prisoners being held by the regime as at end-2025; whereas prisoners are systematically denied basic healthcare and their families face state harassment;

G. whereas EU-Cuba relations are governed by the PDCA with the objective of the Cuban regime progressively opening up through this mechanism and improving the political, economic and social situation of its citizens;

G. whereas the EU signed the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) with Cuba in 2016; whereas, 10 years on, it is clear the PDCA has failed completely across all areas; whereas the regime derives undue political legitimacy from the PDCA; whereas Parliament has repeatedly called for its suspension; whereas, despite this, neither the suspension nor the termination clauses have been activated by the Commission;

H. whereas, almost nine years after Parliament gave its consent to the PDCA, the regime has taken no significant steps toward opening up whatsoever; whereas, on the contrary, it has intensified its repression, persecuted those who dissent and increased the number of political prisoners; whereas the economic situation has also deteriorated to unacceptable levels, leaving the situation on the island markedly worse with the regime more entrenched than ever, to the detriment of the Cuban people;

1. Condemns, in the strongest possible terms, a regime that has tyrannised the island of Cuba for over six decades and is solely responsible for the dire straits in which the Cuban people find themselves, including systemic power shortages, recent electricity blackouts and the current public health crisis;

I. whereas rejection of the regime is widespread both on and off the island, as evidenced by recurrent protests and by the largest exodus in Cuba’s history, with hundreds of thousands of Cubans leaving in search of a better future abroad; whereas the regime’s only response to demands for change is to entrench itself and intensify its repression;

2. Vehemently demands, once again, the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners and an end to the regime’s dictatorship; reiterates its unconditional support for the Cuban people;

J. whereas the Cuban regime seeks to justify its own failure by invoking the US embargo; whereas, in reality, only a partial embargo exists, covering direct investment, tourism and the dollar banking system, while dozens of countries, including EU Member States, trade freely with Cuba, and the United States has for several years been among its principal suppliers of food;

3. Reiterates its call on the Commission to immediately activate the suspension clause set out in Article 85(3)(b) of the PDCA; emphasises that a failure to suspend the PDCA implies that the EU is flagrantly and consciously violating a legal clause contained in one of its agreements; calls on the Commission to ensure that no EU assistance to Cuba is channelled through, managed by, or placed under the control of the Cuban authorities or of entities affiliated with them and operating under the guise of humanitarian organisations or civil society groups;

K. whereas the humanitarian emergency is not the product of any external embargo but the direct consequence of the regime’s own model, namely the militarisation and state monopolisation of the economy, the suppression of private enterprise, and the diversion of resources to the security apparatus rather than to the food, medicine and electricity its people need; whereas this model is embodied by the Business Administration Group (GAESA), a corrupt military conglomerate that is opaque in its operation and structure and controlled by the regime’s leaders, and which controls almost half of the island’s gross domestic product and does not account for its profits; whereas its portfolio comprises hotels, transport, fuel stations, construction, wholesale and retail trade, telecommunications, remittances, foreign trade and the Mariel port free-trade zone, among other sectors, as well as the accounts of diplomatic personnel, embassies and foreign corporations in the country and the earnings from medical missions; whereas these medical missions were until recently the regime’s principal source of hard currency, under which Cuban doctors are sent abroad, in conditions the UN has likened to forced labour, even as hospitals at home are without basic supplies;

4. Calls on the Council to adopt targeted sanctions against all those in the Cuban regime who are responsible for persistent human rights violations on the island, starting with Miguel Díaz-Canel as the highest-ranking figure in the Cuban security forces’ chain of command, together with other high-ranking officials of the Cuban regime;

L. whereas talks have taken place in recent months between the Cuban regime and the US administration, the content of which has not been disclosed; whereas any process of normalisation with the regime must not come at the expense of human rights or relieve it of accountability;

5. Requests the inclusion of Cuba’s interior ministry (MININT) on the EU list of terrorist organisations, given its role in systematic human rights violations in Cuba and as a sponsor of terrorism worldwide;

M. whereas the regime maintains close military cooperation with the Russian Federation, including the reported recruitment of over 1 000 Cuban nationals to fight in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which is incompatible with the spirit of the PDCA and contrary to the security interests of the EU;

6. Calls on the European Court of Auditors to urgently examine all financial support granted to Cuba since 2016;

N. whereas, on 2 March 2026, more than 50 Cuban opposition and civil society organisations, from the island and in exile, presented a roadmap towards democratic transition known as the ‘Liberation Agreement’, which sets out three phases, namely liberation, stabilisation and reconstruction, and democratisation, culminating in free, fair, multiparty elections supervised by the international community;

7. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States and the de facto Cuban authorities.

O. whereas any transition to democracy must be Cuban-led and inclusive of all Cubans, both on the island and in the diaspora;

P. whereas brutal and relentless repression is the only mechanism keeping the regime alive; whereas, in July 2021, thousands of Cubans spontaneously took to the streets in more than fifty localities chanting ‘Freedom!’; whereas this was the largest wave of protests since 1994, and was crushed by plain-clothes police, paramilitary shock groups and the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution; whereas hundreds of people were arbitrarily detained and more than 700 were tried in summary proceedings that Parliament condemned as a ‘judicial farce’, with sentences handed down of up to 25 years merely for protesting peacefully; whereas the message was deliberately exemplary: whoever protests risks their job, their freedom, their family or their life;

Q. whereas, on 20 May 2026, the United States Department of Justice, acting through the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, unsealed an indictment in Miami against Raúl Castro and five other Cuban military officers for the 1996 downing of two light aircraft belonging to the organisation Brothers to the Rescue, in which four people died; whereas those charges represent an escalation of pressure by the current US administration against the Cuban regime;

1. Condemns in the strongest terms the systematic repression carried out by the Cuban regime, in particular the torture, sexual violence and death threats inflicted on political prisoners and the imprisonment of children; expresses its full solidarity with the Cuban people and with all those persecuted for defending their fundamental rights;

2. Demands the immediate release of all imprisoned individuals, including minors, an end to torture and ill-treatment, and unimpeded access for the International Committee of the Red Cross, UN special rapporteurs and a European Parliament delegation to the island, covering all places of detention and prisoners in serious ill health;

3. Considers that the only way out of the dire situation of hardship, poverty and isolation experienced by the Cuban people lies in profound economic and political changes leading without delay to a transition towards a full, multiparty democracy in which dissidents are not persecuted, imprisoned, tortured or murdered and in which basic human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected, including the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, whose freedom it demands without precondition;

4. Calls on the High Representative and the Member States to make clear that, unless clear, concrete and significant steps towards introducing such changes – including a clear proposal for a transition to a democratic system, the immediate and unconditional release of the close to 1 300 political prisoners, and authorisation for Cubans forced to take the painful path of exile to return without reprisals – are taken in the short term, the Union should proceed to suspend the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement, which has been systematically breached by the Cuban regime, and establish sanctions against those responsible for human-rights violations;

5. Calls for targeted measures under the EU Magnitsky Act against those responsible for repression, beginning with the regime’s most senior officials, and against the GAESA leadership, and for the freezing of any EU cooperation that benefits the repressive apparatus;

6. Condemns the recruitment of Cuban nationals to fight in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the regime’s deepening military cooperation with Moscow; insists that this be treated as a central element of the EU’s review of its relations with Cuba;

7. Insists that independent civil society and the democratic opposition take part, without reprisals, in any dialogue under the PDCA, and that no EU funds benefit the regime or GAESA or other entities sustaining repression, and that the EU be in no way complicit in the human rights violations on the island, including the medical missions involving forced labour;

8. Stands ready, together with the international community, to provide Cuba with substantial assistance as soon as it embarks on a credible democratic transition, so that the island may become prosperous and guarantee the well-being of its citizens;

9. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, and the Cuban regime, and to the transition council to be established under the Liberation Agreement, uniting Cuban opposition members from inside and outside the island, namely its signatory coalitions, the Cuban Resistance Assembly (Asamblea de la Resistencia Cubana) and Pasos de Cambio.