Reactions to the EU decision (Updated)

Miriam Leiva of the Damas de Blanco, in El Nuevo Herald: “One hopes that the EU possesses information about the real intentions of Raul Castro and the possibilities that the average citizen doesn’t know about.”

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos says the Cuba-EU dialogue will continue for more than one year, and to end it after one year would be “to flagellate ourselves and have no capacity for influence.”

A French analyst, via AFP, says the decision “was a failure for American diplomacy, which did everything possible through pressure on eastern European countries, like the Czechs or the Poles, to get a different result.”

And Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, in a statement distributed by the Republican Policy Committee, say there is “no more intense, dedicated, or incessant advocate in the international community on behalf of the Cuban dictatorship, and thus of the horrors, the brutality, and the discrimination being suffered by the Cuban people at the hands of the dictatorship, than the Spanish government of Mr. Rodriguez Zapatero.”

[Update: Vladimiro Roca and Martha Beatriz Roque issue a statement saying the European democracies, “led by the hand by Spain,” reached a “reproachable” decision. In one year’s time, “the consequences that the internal opposition and the Cuban people will have paid will be irreversible,” they say, implying that Cuban repression varies according to the posture of foreign governments. (H/T Penultimos Dias)]