Prague, Oct 8 (CTK) – The Czech diplomatic delegation that will visit Cuba next week would like to reopen the negotiations on the debts from the era of the communist bloc that Fidel Castro’s island left unpaid, apart from hoping to start a new business cooperation, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes Thursday.
“We register civilian debts from government loan agreements worth approximately 6.9 billion crowns,” said Katerina Vaidisova, from the Finance Ministry.
There are other debts, too, but these are in a classified regime as they concern military deliveries, the paper writes.
Vaidisova said the negotiations are likely to last long. The first step is to reach agreement with the representatives of the Cuban central bank on the volume of the debt and the validity of the loan contract, she told LN.
Cuba has refused to talk about the debt since 1993, arguing that the dramatic political differences between the two countries actually ruled out any cooperation, the paper writes.
The Czech Republic has been on the Cuban list of enemies for two decades and now the centre-left government of Bohuslav Sobotka wants to use the restoring of the ties and the opening of this Latin American market, which was triggered by the re-establishment of the Cuban-American diplomatic relations, the paper writes.
The Czech diplomatic and business delegation will not fly to Cuba only to discuss the old debt, but also to talk about new projects.
Deputy Foreign Minister Martin Tlapa who will lead the delegation said Czech diplomacy is interested in active cooperation with countries that are undergoing changes.
Such cooperation is part of a new foreign policy of Sobotka’s government, which was criticised by the right-wing opposition and nongovernmental organisations for abandoning the traditional promotion of human rights.
This will be the second U-turn in Cuban-Czech relations. In the 1960s, Havana severed its ties with Washington and Czechoslovakia became one of Cuba’s closest business partners, apart from the Soviet Union, LN writes.
In 1961, imports from Cuba increased by the unbelievable 2300 percent, compared with 1960. Castro’s island sent mostly oranges, nickel and sugar to pay for submachine guns and ammunition. Sugar represented most of the Cuban exports to Czechoslovakia, which, however, sold its own beet sugar abroad, the paper writes.
Hundreds of Czechoslovak experts operated in Cuba then, with the economist Valtr Komarek (1930-2013), whom Che Guavara consulted on restructuring, being the most famous of them.
After the fall of the Czechoslovak communist regime in 1989, the Czech Embassy in Cuba turned into the headquarters for other Western countries and for providing aid to the local dissidents, LN writes.
In the 1990s, the Czech Republic applied a strict non-cooperation policy to Cuba. It was actually awaiting Fidel Castro’s death, the regime’s subsequent downfall and the return of the Cuban opposition from Florida. However, Castro is still alive and Cuba started opening by itself, the paper writes.
The attitude of the Czech Republic, but also of the European Union and the United States began to be tinted by pragmatism. Cuba has been pragmatic as well. Despite the embargo, more than half of the food has been imported to Cuba from the USA for many years thanks to a system of various exceptions. Though Cuba had no diplomatic relations with Israel, the first foreign investment in Cuban agriculture was from Israel, LN writes.
Cuba needs to import 80 percent of its food, which is an opportunity for Czech food producers. Seven years ago, private farming began to be discreetly introduced in Cuba, but it efficiently continues to be low because still far more draft animals than tractors are being used in the fields. Moreover, the tractors are old Soviet-made vehicles, LN writes.
Other areas in which Czech firms might get involved in Cuba are the energy industry, including alternative energy sources, and road and railway construction, the paper writes.
It is noteworthy that Vladimir Dlouhy who, as the head of the Chamber of Commerce, will be part of the Czech delegation that will leave for Cuba on Sunday in order to try to re-establish bilateral cooperation, was, as then Czech industry and trade minister, present at the official opening of Cuba’s largest power station Felton in 1997, which was the last big project that the Czechs completed in Cuba and a symbolic end of the past trade cooperation between the two communist countries, LN writes.
