Urgent Letter about Cuba to Ms Kaja Kallas, EU high representative

The European Left calls on the European Union to respond decisively to the extraterritorial escalation of the US blockade against Cuba and to defend international law, European sovereignty and Cuba’s right to trade freely.

Read the APPEAL:

SUBJECT: Demand for the effective activation of the European Union Blocking Statute in response to the extraterritorial escalation of the United States blockade against Cuba

The executive order of 1 May 2026 deepens this aggression by extending the sanctions regime to fundamental sectors of the Cuban economy and to foreign persons, financial institutions and companies that maintain legitimate economic relations with Cuba. This measure seeks to deter third countries, shipping companies, banks, insurers, commercial operators and European companies from exercising their right to trade with Cuba in accordance with international law and the legal order of the European Union.

The European Union cannot limit itself to ritual declarations against the embargo while European operators are forced, for fear of US reprisals, to suspend commercial, financial, maritime or energy links with Cuba. If the Union accepts in practice that Washington decides with whom European companies may trade, which countries may receive energy supplies and which economic relations are permitted outside US territory, then the so-called European strategic autonomy is reduced to an empty formula.

For this reason, the European Left Party demands that the European External Action Service promote, in coordination with the European Commission, the Council and the Member States, the effective, immediate and reinforced application of Council Regulation (EC) No 2271/96, designed precisely to protect European operators against the effects of the extraterritorial application of legislation adopted by third countries.

This response must include, at a minimum, the following measures:

• First, a public, clear and unequivocal condemnation of the US executive orders of 29 January and 1 May 2026, qualifying them as unilateral coercive measures of an extraterritorial nature, contrary to international law and harmful to the sovereignty of Cuba, of third States and of the European Union itself.
• Second, the effective activation of the Blocking Statute to prevent European companies, banks, insurers, shipping companies and operators from complying, directly or indirectly, with the restrictions imposed by the United States against Cuba when such restrictions have no basis in Union law.
• Third, the urgent updating of the annex to Council Regulation (EC) No 2271/96, if necessary, in order to expressly incorporate the new US executive orders and any acts derived from them, ensuring that no European company may invoke legal uncertainty in order to submit preventively to Washington’s sanctions.
• Fourth, the issuance of binding guidelines or clear instructions to European operators, especially in the financial, maritime, insurance, energy, logistics and commercial sectors, reminding them that compliance with US extraterritorial sanctions against Cuba may constitute an infringement of Union law and of the national rules implementing the Blocking Statute.
• Fifth, the establishment of mechanisms for protection, compensation and legal support for European companies affected by US reprisals, so that the burden of defending European legal sovereignty does not fall individually on isolated economic operators.
• Sixth, the investigation of business decisions adopted by European operators or by operators with a significant presence in the Union that have suspended services, contracts, payments, insurance, transport or supplies with Cuba as a consequence of the US executive orders, in order to determine whether such decisions constitute a form of direct or indirect compliance with extraterritorial measures prohibited by the Blocking Statute.
• Seventh, a formal demand to the Government of the United States to withdraw the executive orders of 29 January and 1 May 2026, to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, and to cease all threats against third States, companies and financial institutions that maintain lawful relations with the island.
• Eighth, the active defence, at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and all relevant multilateral forums, of Cuba’s right to trade, to receive energy supplies, to access international financing and to develop its economic relations without external coercion.

The European Union has legal instruments with which to act. What is lacking is not regulatory capacity. Now it is time to act. The Blocking Statute cannot remain a symbolic declaration while the US blockade hardens, expands and directly affects the Cuban population. European passivity in the face of this escalation would not be neutrality: it would be a form of practical consent to US extraterritoriality.

The European Left Party recalls that the Union itself has repeatedly rejected the extraterritorial application of US sanctions against Cuba and has defended the principle that its economic and commercial relations with third countries cannot be determined by unilateral decisions taken in Washington. That principle must now be translated into action.

Europe must decide whether it defends international law or whether it accepts that the United States may impose, from outside European territory, the conditions under which its companies, banks, ports, shipping companies and institutions operate. It must decide whether its relationship with Cuba is governed by the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Cuba, by international law and by its own rules, or whether it is subjected to the blackmail of a foreign power.

The blockade against Cuba is criminal in its effects, illegitimate in its objectives and extraterritorial in its mechanisms. It punishes an entire people in order to break their sovereignty. The European Union cannot continue denouncing it at the United Nations while tolerating its effects within the European economic area.

For all these reasons, we demand that the European External Action Service launch an urgent political initiative to guarantee the real application of the Blocking Statute, protect European operators, defend the legal sovereignty of the Union and accompany with concrete measures the international demand to put an end to the blockade against Cuba.

Yours sincerely,