On the political repression and humanitarian situation in Cuba

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,

– 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, and in particular to the essential elements clause under Article 1(5) thereof and to the suspension clause under Article 85(3)(b) thereof,

– having regard to the consent given by Parliament to the PDCA on 5 July 2017, premised on a tangible improvement in human rights and fundamental freedoms in Cuba,

— having regard to the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime (EU Magnitsky Act),

– having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to all of which Cuba is a party,

– having regard to the reports of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Prisoners Defenders, in particular the May 2026 edition of its monthly report, published on 11 June 2026, covering torture, the structural violation of due process, ‘pre-criminal social dangerousness’, digital surveillance and forced malnutrition in Cuban prisons,

– having regard to the joint hearing of its Committee on Foreign Affairs and its Subcommittee on Human Rights on the situation in Cuba, held on 5 May 2026, and to the testimonies presented by the rapporteur for Cuba of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Stuardo Ralón Orellana, and by Cuban opposition leader and former political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer,

– having regard to the speeches by the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) Kaja Kallas at Parliament’s plenary, in particular those of 6 May 2025 and 19 May 2026, and to the EU-Cuba Human Rights Dialogues,

– having regard to the IACHR statements on Cuba of 25 March 2026,

– having regard to the Freedom Accord (Liberation Agreement) signed in Miami on 2 March 2026 by the Cuban opposition coalitions Pasos de Cambio and the Asamblea de la Resistencia Cubana (ARC),

– having regard to the report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of 12 June 2023 on the case of rights defenders Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero in Cuba,

– having regard to the indictment unsealed on 20 May 2026 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, charging Raúl Castro and five other officials in connection with the shooting-down of two civilian aircraft belonging to the Brothers to the Rescue organisation in 1996,

– having regard to Rules 136(2) and (4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas more than five decades of political and economic choices by the Cuban communist regime have driven the country into a profound crisis, marked by blackouts of up to 22 hours a day, acute shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine and widespread poverty, under a constitutionally entrenched one-party regime that has lasted for more than 67 years, and in which it is the only permitted political force; whereas this collapse of a political and economic model built on immobility, repression and resistance to change, compounded by the absence of free, fair and competitive elections and the prohibition of political pluralism, brings Cuba increasingly close to the characteristics of a failed state and constitutes an anti-democratic anomaly in its region;

B. whereas, according to the NGO Prisoners Defenders, Cuba held a record 1 281 political prisoners at the end of May 2026, including minors – some held in maximum-security prisons alongside adults – with many detainees in serious ill health, among them athletes, artists, independent journalists and peaceful activists; whereas the organisation documents systematic torture, sexual violence and death threats against detainees, and found, in a statistically representative study, that every political prisoner examined, including minors, had suffered torture and been denied medical care, amid recurrent patterns of arbitrary and incommunicado detention, enforced temporary disappearance and harassment of families; whereas the case of José Daniel Ferrer, founder of the Patriotic Union of Cuba and a prisoner of conscience whose release Parliament has repeatedly demanded, is emblematic of the regime’s methods and resulted in his forced exile in October 2025;

C. whereas, in their daily lives, ordinary Cubans face hospitals that are unable to function normally and without basic medicines and where patients must bring their own supplies, alongside chronic shortages of food and water and essential goods, sold only in foreign-currency stores beyond the reach of ordinary state wages; whereas, according to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, 89 % of families live in extreme poverty and 7 in 10 Cubans must skip meals, while the UN reports a backlog of over 96 000 pending surgeries, including 11 000 for children, and around 1 million people are dependent on water trucking that is constrained by diesel shortages;

D. whereas, in April 2026, the EU released an additional EUR 2 million in humanitarian aid, in addition to the EUR 4 million already allocated this year for the Caribbean region, to support humanitarian partners delivering urgent relief to the most vulnerable; whereas the updated UN plan of action for Cuba, seeking to assist around two million people, remains severely underfunded, the UN having mobilised USD 26.2 million with a USD 68 million shortfall remaining;

E. whereas cumulative inflation in Cuba over the past four years exceeds 500 %, while state salaries are worth between USD 15 and 25 a month at the black-market rate – the only realistic rate on the island; whereas the regime has made the country dependent on imported fuel, and as its traditional suppliers Russia and Venezuela have curtailed deliveries the energy emergency has deepened, culminating in the complete collapse of the national electricity system for several days in October 2024, leaving 11 million people without power;

F. whereas Cuba today imports more than 70 % of the food it consumes – in a fertile tropical country that was once one of the world’s largest sugar producers – a collapse that is the direct result of decades of collectivised, state-controlled and militarised agriculture and of an unproductive economic model;

G. whereas the humanitarian emergency is not the product of any external embargo but the direct consequence of the regime’s own model and failures – 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 in the corrupt military conglomerate GAESA, which controls close to half of the island’s economy, is accountable to no one and captures the regime’s hard-currency earnings – including from the medical missions that the UN has likened to forced labour – even as hospitals are left without basic supplies; whereas this crisis cannot be separated from decades of state repression, and further instability risks graver humanitarian, migratory and security consequences;

H. whereas EU–Cuba relations are governed by the PDCA, whose stated objective was that the regime would progressively open up and improve the situation of its citizens; whereas, almost nine years after Parliament gave its consent to the PDCA, the regime has made no significant opening whatsoever but has instead intensified repression, persecuted dissent and increased the number of political prisoners, while the economic situation has deteriorated to unacceptable levels; whereas the agreement has failed in its core purpose and the VP/HR has acknowledged that the agreement has not met its objectives and is now under review;

I. whereas rejection of the regime is widespread both on and off the island – evidenced by recurrent demonstrations and ‘pot-banging’ (cacerolazo) protests and by the largest exodus in Cuba’s history, with hundreds of thousands leaving in search of a better future – while many who fled or were forced out are not allowed to return and remain in exile; whereas the regime’s only response to demands for change is to entrench itself and intensify repression;

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

K. whereas the regime persistently refuses entry to delegations of the European Parliament, to UN special rapporteurs and to independent monitors, and insists on excluding the democratic opposition and independent civil society from any political dialogue;

L. whereas talks have taken place in recent months between the regime and the United States administration, the content of which remains undisclosed, and the regime has acknowledged negotiations with Washington; whereas the United States has adopted targeted sanctions against senior figures of the regime and the institutions of its security and military apparatus, citing the regime’s repression at home and hostile activities abroad; whereas any process of normalisation must not come at the expense of human rights or relieve the regime of accountability;

M. whereas the regime maintains close military cooperation with the Russian Federation, including the reported recruitment of thousands of 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; whereas, at the end of March 2026, a Russian-owned tanker carrying an estimated 730 000 barrels of crude oil was allowed to dock on Cuba’s northern coast;

N. whereas, on 2 March 2026, more than 50 Cuban opposition and civil-society organisations, on the island and in exile, presented a roadmap to democratic transition – known as the Liberation Agreement, or Freedom Accord – setting out three phases of liberation, stabilisation and reconstruction, and democratisation, culminating in free, fair, multiparty elections supervised by the international community; whereas any transition must be Cuban-led and inclusive of all Cubans, on the island and in the diaspora;

1. Condemns in the strongest terms the systematic repression carried out by the Cuban regime – in particular the torture, sexual violence, death threats, forced malnutrition, mass surveillance, forced labour and judicial persecution inflicted on political prisoners, protesters, dissidents, students, religious leaders and human-rights defenders – and the imprisonment of children; expresses its full solidarity with the Cuban people and with all those persecuted for defending their fundamental rights, including the leaders of the historical and emerging democratic opposition, and independent civic movements;

2. Demands the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners and of all persons arbitrarily detained for exercising their fundamental rights, including minors, an end to torture and ill-treatment, immediate access to free and fair trials, and to medical care for those in serious ill health, and full reparation for the victims of torture; demands that the regime grant unimpeded access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, UN special rapporteurs and procedures, a European Parliament delegation and independent observers to all places of detention, and deplores its repeated refusal to do so;

3. Considers that the only way out of the 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 fundamental rights and freedoms are respected through inclusive national dialogue towards that transition without restrictions;

4. Urges the Cuban regime to put forward sustainable and meaningful economic reforms that ensure legal certainty and support independent economic actors, private initiatives, investments and freedoms, as essential ways to avoid collapse;

5. Reiterates its previous positions regarding the activation of the PDCA’s suspension clause and calls on the VP/HR and the Member States to make clear that, unless clear, concrete and significant steps towards introducing such changes – including a clear proposal for a roadmap for democratic transition in Cuba, 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 EU should proceed without further delay to suspend the PDCA, which has been systematically breached by the Cuban regime;

6. Calls for targeted measures under the EU Magnitsky Act against those responsible for repression, beginning with the most senior officials of the regime, including Miguel Díaz-Canel and the senior chain of command of the security, judicial and penitentiary apparatus, and against the leadership of GAESA;

7. Calls on the regime to abolish, in all its forms, the pre-criminal mechanisms used to silence and arbitrarily imprison citizens, and to release all those convicted under them without any crime having been committed;

8. Calls for an independent international investigation into prison conditions, the regime of forced malnutrition and deaths in custody;

9. Condemns the regime’s material support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, including the recruitment of Cuban nationals to fight against Ukraine, and its deepening military cooperation with Moscow, and insists that this be treated as a central element of the EU’s review of its relations with Cuba; condemns equally the regime’s alignment with the Lukashenka regime in Belarus, including the close military and security ties that undermine European security;

10. Insists that independent civil society and the democratic opposition take part, without reprisals, in any dialogue under the PDCA – whose inclusion the agreement itself requires – and that the EU be in no way complicit in human-rights violations on the island, including the medical missions involving forced labour, which it demands the regime end in all its forms;

11. Expresses its utmost and urgent concern over the dramatic deterioration of living conditions in Cuba and the growing humanitarian impact of the lack of access to fuel, medicines, food and other essential goods and public services, particularly affecting vulnerable groups; calls on the Commission and the Member States to develop humanitarian channels delivering energy, food and medicine directly to the Cuban people and independent enterprises, bypassing the state, and calls on all donors to step up humanitarian aid, which must remain protected, free from state intermediation and never finance the regime;

12. Stands ready, together with the international community, to provide Cuba with substantial assistance through channels independent of the government while it embarks on a credible democratic transition, so that the island may become prosperous and guarantee the well-being of its citizens; calls on the VP/HR and the Member States to raise these cases consistently in all relevant forums and to support accountability and a peaceful, citizen-led transition;

13. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the rotating Presidency of the Council, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Organization of American States, the United Nations, the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and the Cuban regime.