Spain seems disposed to seal in a lasting way the relationship with Cuba. However, it also seems determined that the focus not be placed on the meetings between the Spanish and Cuban leaders. The Cuba-Spain understanding has always had numerous detractors on the banks of the Potomac and the Manzanares. Thus, prudence obliges: good relations with Cuba, but, above all, discretion. The Spanish diplomacy is acting in Cuba with its own agenda and this, undoubtedly, as has happened on other occasions, strains relations between Washington and Madrid and especially strengthens the sectors that bet on establishing a siege on Díaz-Canel that keeps him isolated from a rapprochement with the European Foreign Ministries. Given the circumstances, discretion and independence are being presented as the best recipe to approach Cuba and it has been considered this way by the Spanish socialist executive in the last year: following an autonomous road in Cuba does not contradict the need to act with the greatest prudence. The then acting Foreign Minister Josep Borrell visited Cuba in mid-October, he did so in the framework of the high-level periodic relations established by Díaz-Canel and the acting president of the government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, during his visit...

Title III of the Helms-Burton Act came into force this May 2, a measure that seriously compromises Spanish investments in Cuba. Simultaneously, Venezuela is still immersed in its umpteenth episode of street tensions. The self-proclaimed president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, last Tuesday, April 30, released Leopoldo López, leader of the Venezuelan opposition under house arrest. The liberation was led by Guaidó himself with the support of a tiny group of soldiers from the Venezuelan army opposed to the government. Leopoldo López sought refuge in the Spanish embassy, and the country that gives him shelter has just come out of a general election and is in the hands of an acting government. Spain’s position in Cuba and Venezuela is, at this moment, extremely compromised and not only because of the situation of the electoral processes in which the country is immersed, but also because of the impossibility of making their interests in Caracas and Cuba compatible with its relations with the United States and due to its contradictions in recent months. However, the scenario could have been more complicated if the general elections of last April 28 had precipitated the formation of a government diametrically opposed to the current one. Two...