Further to the EU resumption of normal relations with Cuba, it now transpires that the ban on inviting Cuban dissidents to receptions at European embassies in Havana, proposed by the Spanish and eloquently opposed by Vaclav Havel, has been blocked by the Czechs:
The ban would have suspended a 2003 resolution that called on EU countries to support anti-Castro dissidents by inviting them to parties celebrating national holidays.
Spain proposed the ban as part of a package of measures — including the resumption of EU missions to Cuba — designed to ease tensions with Havana. It became a sticking point when the Czechs threatened to use their veto in the 25-member Council of Foreign Ministers, where unanimity is required on policy decisions.
The “Cocktail Wars,” as one paper dubbed them, ended Jan. 31 when Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda convinced other ministers to remove the ban during a closed-door lunch.
“I consider this an unequivocal success,” Svoboda later told reporters.
Debate over the ban touched a nerve here, where many former dissidents entered politics after communism fell in 1989.
Former dissident-turned-president Vaclav Havel wrote in the Jan. 28 edition of the French newspaper Le Figaro, “I can hardly imagine a better way for the EU to spit on [its] principles. … We will start discriminating against free-thinking people.”
A source at the foreign ministry in Spain played down the dispute. “We want to continue working with opposition in Cuba, but the old measures weren’t working,” he said.
The Czechs, who don’t seem to have quite got the hang of EU-approved methods of dealing with totalitarian regimes, have also responded unhelpfully to North Korean requests to have Team America: World Police banned (via The Marmot’s Hole):
North Korea’s embassy in Prague has demanded that the film “Team America: World Police” be banned in the Czech Republic, saying the movie harms their country’s reputation, a report said Saturday. […]
“It harms the image of our country,” the Lidove Noviny daily quoted a North Korean diplomat as saying. “Such behavior is not part of our country’s political culture. Therefore, we want the film to be banned.”
The Czech Foreign Ministy said the film would not be banned in the Czech Republic.
“We told them it’s an unrealistic wish,” ministry spokesman Vit Kolar was quoted as saying. “Obviously, it’s absurd to demand that in a democratic country.”
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