Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged in his closing speech at the Extraordinary Plenary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba that the model of enduring the crisis is no longer enough: "We owe our homeland to resistance, but today, resistance alone is insufficient. This time demands that we transform, produce more, unlock, listen more, make better decisions, and be accountable."
The phrase marks a significant rhetorical shift for a regime that for years presented "creative resistance" as the central response to the economic collapse.
Only in March 2026, Díaz-Canel had defended cooking with charcoal and firewood as an example of that same resilience.
The Plenary session met on Wednesday at the Palace of the Revolution to approve a package of more than twenty economic and social transformations, in an accelerated institutional process: Díaz-Canel announced the reforms on June 12, the PCC supported them on Wednesday, and the National Assembly was called for an extraordinary session this Thursday by Agreement 599-X/2026.
In his speech, the president also acknowledged internal responsibilities: "There are obstacles that do not come from outside or from blockades. There is slowness, bureaucracy, rules that hinder those who want to produce, and decisions that we have postponed. What depends on us, we must change ourselves, and we must change it now."
The announced emergency agenda is organized around five fronts: macroeconomic stabilization, transformation of the economic model, recovery of the agricultural sector, strengthening of cost management, and mitigation of the social costs of the changes.
Among the specific measures are the elimination of general price caps—which, according to Díaz-Canel himself, "led to the disappearance of products, shifts toward illegality, and higher prices"—the opening up to private and foreign financial institutions, the authorization of direct import and export for state and non-state enterprises, the expansion of land in usufruct, and the removal of tariffs on solar technologies.
The regime also announced the reduction of the number of ministries from 27 to between 20 and 21, as well as the opening up to investment from Cubans living abroad. Díaz-Canel revealed that the government examined the models of China and Vietnam and utilized artificial intelligence to assess the proposals.
The context in which these statements are made is one of unprecedented deterioration.
The CEPAL forecasts a decline in Cuba's GDP of 6.5% in 2026, with a cumulative contraction of 10.3% over the two-year period of 2025-2026 and a loss close to 26% since 2020.
Power outages exceed 20 hours a day in some provinces, the sugar harvest has fallen below 150,000 tons —the lowest level in over a century— and the dollar was trading this Thursday at 685 Cuban pesos in the informal market.
The PCC greenlit the transformations with the support of Raúl Castro, who participated via videoconference and signed the proposal document.
His message to the Assembly was brief but revealing: "As important as the approval of these transformations is, their proper and timely implementation is even more crucial."
The citizen reaction on social media was one of skepticism. The economist Pedro Monreal described the reforms as "late pragmatism" and warned that Cuba has "missed the boat" on reforms in the style of China or Vietnam.
Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged in his speech that "the mistake was not in raising them, but in having postponed them."
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