• Submitted by: manso
• Politics and Government
• 09 / 04 / 2010

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The Cuban government will continue to deepen social and economic reforms, an official of the governing party in Spain said during a press conference in Havana Sunday.

“The future will come,” said Leire Pajín, secretary general of socialist party PSOE, after meeting with Jorge Martí, head of international relations of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). “I can’t anticipate how it will be, but I have seen in a very clear way the will of the party to advance in this transformation process and economic and social reforms.”

The PSOE delegation also met with Raúl Castro, who is second secretary of the PCC, and First Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura at the headquarters of the PCC’s central committee.

During its week in Havana, the PSOE delegation also met with Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who has been leading Church-State negotiations that have prompted the release of 52 prisoners.

As part of a reform process, the Cuban government has turned over more than 1 million hectares of state land to private farmers. President Raúl Castro recently announced that small businesses will be allowed to hire, to absorb 1 million state workers expected to be laid off.

The PSOE will also advocate an end of the European Union’s 14-year old “Common Stance” policy towards Cuba, which conditions normal relations on internal changes in Cuba.

“The PSOE honestly believes that it would be positive having a new framework in EU-Cuba relations,” Pajín said. “This would bring a lot of benefits at this moment and in this process.”

Meanwhile, President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, also of the PSOE, said during a visit in Tokyo that he was “convinced” there will be a change in EU policy in October, when it is up for review.

Source: www.cubastandard.com/2010/09/02/spanish-politician-cuba-will-continue-to...