Spain and Cuba: Historical Memory, Threatened Interests, and Moral Debt

The relations between Spain and Cuba have never been ordinary. There is a shared history, blood, language, culture, emigration, family, commerce, pain, nostalgia, wounds, and responsibilities between the two nations. Cuba was the last major Spanish possession in America. Spain continued to live in Cuba long after 1898, through its immigrants, businesses, associations, surnames, and emotional ties. From 1959 to the present, Spain's policy towards Cuba has been a blend of historical closeness, economic pragmatism, diplomatic calculation, ideological sympathies, humanitarian gestures, and, on many occasions, an insufficient moral firmness in the face of the communist dictatorship.

Before 1959, the relationship between Spain and Cuba was characterized by the ongoing, intense Spanish presence on the Island. After Cuba's formal independence in 1902, thousands of Spaniards continued to emigrate to Cuba. Galicians, Asturians, Canarians, Catalans, Basques, and Castilians played a crucial role in the social and economic fabric of Cuba. Spain no longer governed Cuba, but in many respects, Cuba continued to be a sentimental and human extension of Spain in the Caribbean.

During the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, relations with Franco's Spain were cordial. Both regimes shared an anti-communist rhetoric, despite their differing political realities. There were commercial interests, migration ties, and a stable diplomatic relationship. At that time, nothing suggested that, after Fidel Castro came to power in January 1959, Franco's Spain would ultimately maintain relations with a revolution that would soon declare itself Marxist-Leninist and allied with the Soviet Union.

The relationship was not without its clashes. In January 1960, when Fidel Castro, in a televised address, accused the Spanish Embassy in Havana of conspiring against the revolution and supporting counter-revolutionary sectors, the Spanish ambassador Juan Pablo de Lojendio watched the intervention, headed to the television studios, and presented himself live to demand that Castro allow him to respond to his accusation. The young Cuban dictator, already accustomed to speaking for hours without real contradiction, found himself facing a Spanish diplomat who stood up to him in front of the cameras. The scene ended with the ambassador's expulsion and a diplomatic crisis, but not with the severing of relations. De Lojendio left a powerful image: that of a Spanish ambassador confronting, live, the accusations of an authoritarian leader who was already beginning to turn his speeches into a tool of political domination.

After Franco's death and the beginning of Spain's democratic transition, Cuba became a test case for Madrid's new foreign policy. Adolfo Suárez visited Havana in 1978, becoming the first head of government from Western Europe to do so after Castro's victory. The visit held significant symbolic value: Spain, emerging from a dictatorship and striving to consolidate its democracy, was reaching out to Cuba, which was under an increasingly totalitarian regime.

With Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, relations with Cuba had a lower profile. Spain was focused on consolidating its own democracy, overcoming the trauma of 23-F, joining NATO, and securing its place in Europe. Cuba remained within the broader policy towards Ibero-America, with no gestures of confrontation with Castro's regime or initiatives in favor of democracy in the largest of the Antilles.

The period of Felipe González was more complex. He traveled to Cuba in 1986 and maintained an intense personal relationship with Fidel Castro. There was closeness, long conversations, gestures of friendship, and a socialist diplomacy that sought to influence through personal trust. Over time, letters and testimonies have surfaced indicating that González advised Castro on the necessity of opening democratic spaces and reforming an excessively rigid economy.

González tried to persuade Castro from a position of closeness, but he did not prioritize the freedom of political prisoners or the recognition of the opposition within Spanish politics. There were advice, warnings, and discussions; what was missing was real pressure. History showed that Fidel Castro listened, made promises, or engaged in debate, but he did not yield in his monopoly on power.

We must not forget the sympathies and support provided by the Cuban regime to the Basque terrorist group ETA, especially during the 1980s.

The major shift came with José María Aznar. His government promoted the European Union's Common Position on Cuba in 1996, which had the declared objective of facilitating a transition towards democracy, respect for human rights, and fundamental freedoms. It was the moment when Spain, for the first time since Castro came to power, managed to Europeanize a firmer policy towards Havana. It was no longer just about maintaining historical relations, but about conditioning European cooperation on democratic progress.

Aznar was, among Spanish presidents, the one who adopted a more clearly critical stance towards the Cuban regime. His visit to Cuba during the IX Ibero-American Summit in Havana in 1999 had a particularly significant moment: his meeting with dissidents and representatives of independent civil society. That meeting was no small gesture. In the territory controlled by Fidel Castro, a president of the Spanish Government was listening to dissidents and expressing support for their aspirations of human rights, democracy, and freedom.

That episode made a difference. The Cuban dictatorship has always sought to portray the opposition as nonexistent, marginal, or mercenary. When a European government leader meets with opposition figures within Cuba, it breaks the regime's façade. It tells the Cuban democrats: you exist, you have a voice, you are not alone.

The Black Spring of 2003 reaffirmed the repressive nature of Castroism. The regime imprisoned 75 opponents, journalists, and peaceful activists, and executed three young Cubans following a summary trial for attempting to hijack a boat. The European Union responded with diplomatic sanctions.

At that stage, the firmest stance towards Cuba was associated with Aznar's government and with European countries particularly sensitive to communist totalitarianism, such as the Czech Republic and Poland.

With José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, politics changed. His government, through Chancellor Miguel Ángel Moratinos, opted for dialogue with Havana, the normalization of relations, and the lifting of European sanctions. Supporters argue that this policy contributed to the release of dozens of political prisoners, especially the 52 who remained incarcerated from the Group of 75. This initiative had a genuine humanitarian aspect: many prisoners left the jails and traveled to Spain with their families.

But it also had its shadows: for many opponents, it was not a full liberation but rather a negotiated exile. Leaving prison only to abandon one’s homeland is not justice. The truth is that the communist regime was compelled to release political prisoners due to international pressures following the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the repression against the Damas de Blanco, and the hunger strike by Guillermo Fariñas. Moratinos was criticized for avoiding direct meetings with the opposition during significant trips to Havana and for prioritizing the relationship with the regime. The Zapatero era was thus marked by profound ambiguity: apparent humanitarian gestures and a policy that was accommodating to the jailers.

With Mariano Rajoy, one could have expected a full return to Aznar’s firmness, but the reality was more lukewarm. The Popular Party maintained a critical discourse towards Castroism, and Rajoy, before coming to power, had harshly denounced the repression and the existence of political prisoners in Cuba. However, once in power, his policy was less confrontational than many opponents had anticipated. Minister José Manuel García-Margallo's trip to Havana in 2014 (and also in 2016) drew criticism because there was no firm agenda in support of the opposition. Furthermore, during Rajoy's term, Spain did not block the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement with Cuba, which would eventually replace the Common Position, and which has turned out to be very negative. Rajoy was not Zapatero, but he was also not Aznar.

With Pedro Sánchez, the relationship clearly shifted towards normalization and complicity with the regime. In 2018, Sánchez made the first official visit by a Spanish government president to Cuba in 32 years. The trip aimed to revitalize political, economic, cultural, and business ties. Spain and Cuba agreed on an annual mechanism for political consultations that included the issue of human rights. However, Sánchez did not meet with the Cuban democratic opposition. This fact weighed heavily. In a dictatorship, not meeting with the victims while shaking hands with the power has an unavoidable political significance: complicity bias.

The visit of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia to Cuba in 2019 deepened that symbolic normalization. Felipe VI publicly defended democracy as a political model, but the visit was viewed by some sectors of the exile community and the Cuban opposition as beneficial to the Castro regime. The Spanish government argued that it was about normalizing relations with a historically close country. There can be no normalcy with a criminal one-party dictatorship.

After the protests of July 11 and 12, 2021, Spanish politics was once again under scrutiny. The Cuban people took to the streets in large numbers demanding freedom, food, medicine, electricity, and an end to repression. The regime's response was brutality, jail, rigged trials, and disproportionate sentences. Spain called for respect for the right to protest and the release of those detained, but the Government refrained from a strong condemnation of the Cuban dictatorship.

By mid-2026, Cuba is facing an extreme crisis: prolonged blackouts, shortages of food and medicine, deteriorating hospital conditions, constant emigration, political repression, and nearly 800 political prisoners living in hellish conditions. Spain maintains a policy of humanitarian aid, cooperation, and dialogue. The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) has announced shipments of food, hygiene kits, support through international organizations, photovoltaic panels for social centers, and collaboration with "humanitarian actors." There is also a framework for bilateral cooperation with Cuba in areas of development, public administration, productivity, territory, and humanitarian action.

The crucial question is how that aid is channeled and who it empowers. If cooperation were to reach the vulnerable population directly, through transparent mechanisms, international organizations, churches, independent civil society, and verifiable actors, it could alleviate the needs and suffering of many. However, if it ends up going through structures controlled by the regime, it only serves to oxygenate a dictatorship that uses those resources for the benefit of its supporters and as a tool for political control.

In democratic Spain, there have been politicians and public figures who have clearly expressed solidarity with the cause of Cuban freedom. José María Aznar takes the lead. Pablo Casado welcomed the Ladies in White and promised to spearhead the demand for democracy and human rights in Cuba throughout Europe. Albert Rivera and Inés Arrimadas denounced the lack of freedoms and criticized the government of Sánchez for its timidity in the face of Castroism. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, and other politicians from the PP have met with Cuban dissidents and expressed their support for the struggle for freedoms in Cuba. Santiago Abascal, Hermann Tertsch, Jorge Martín Frías, and other members of Vox have also made their stance clear and firm. Within Spanish civil society, there have always been strong voices against the Cuban tyranny.

In the European Parliament, Spanish MEPs —especially from the Popular Party and Vox— have promoted resolutions, denunciations, and debates regarding political prisoners, repression, human rights, and the responsibility of the Cuban regime. There have also been Spanish socialists critical of Castroism, although the official position of the ruling PSOE has leaned more towards friendly and complicit dialogue than towards a robust defense of human rights and democracy.

The underlying thesis is clear: Spain has a special moral obligation to Cuba. No European country shares such a deep, human connection with the Island, steeped in history. Precisely for this reason, Spain cannot act as a neutral player in the face of a dictatorship that imprisons, represses, and impoverishes the Cuban people.

Spain can and should provide humanitarian aid to Cuba, but it must not strengthen tyranny. It can and should maintain diplomatic channels, but it must not confuse dialogue with complicity. It can and should defend its companies — which are already withdrawing from the Island due to pressures from the United States — but not at the expense of ignoring that they operate in a system without free unions, without independent courts, without a free press, and with an economy controlled by military officials and hierarchs of the single party with many crimes in their history.

The Spanish policy towards Cuba should have five clear principles: immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners; public and systematic support for the democratic opposition and the independent civil society; direct humanitarian aid to the people, without going through the corrupt and repressive hands of the regime; review of all cooperation that may strengthen the control apparatus; and unwavering defense of democratic transition, free elections, political pluralism, and the rule of law.

Spain should not wait until the day after the fall of Castroism to side with freedom. If it arrives too late, many Cubans will remember that when their children were imprisoned, their mothers were beaten, their hospitals were collapsing, their youth were emigrating, and their opponents were being tortured, Madrid too often preferred complacent dialogue and diplomatic caution.

History will judge Spain in Cuba not by the number of statements it issued, but by the clarity with which it stood on the side of the victims. And the final question is inevitable: when Cuba is free, how will Spain want to be remembered? As the motherland that accompanied its Cuban children in their time of oppression, or as a cautious power that maintained its friendship with the jailers while political prisoners were tortured and even died from malnutrition?

That is the great pending task of Spanish policy towards Cuba: to move from diplomacy based on interests — about to lose everything due to the current misguided policy — to diplomacy rooted in ethics and solidarity with a people oppressed by a brutal dictatorship.