Cuban civil society denounces opacity in Celac-UE social forum | News

Cuban civil society organizations, headed by the Cuban Association of the United Nations (ACNU) denounced this Friday the lack of transparency, the opacity and the exclusions of a social forum prior to the CELAC-EU Summit that will take place in Brussels on the 17th and the July 18.

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The ACNU denounced the lack of timely information and the exclusion of participants in the so-called "civil society, youth and local authorities" forum, convened by the European Union prior to the official summit.

The president of the ACNU, Norma Goicochea, said that the proposed format does not conform to the decision adopted by the foreign ministers of both integration blocs at a meeting held in Buenos Aires on October 27, 2022.

In this sense, Goicochea explained that the forum is not organized by the EU but by a platform of organizations, which, he argued, is far from the usual practice of this type of meetings prior to official meetings.

On the other hand, he said that the inclusion of a debate on local governments was done without the consent of the group of Latin American social actors that will take part in the Brussels meeting.

According to the leader of the ACNU, the new proposal ignores the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) and its social articulation based on an integrationist, supportive and social justice approach for the Latin American and Caribbean region, he pointed out. the president of UNAC.

Likewise, he said that the proposed program lacks topics that address the serious problems that countries are facing after the Covid-19 pandemic and the current deep economic crisis; At the same time, it avoids discussing the need to reform the current financial architecture and economic order.

He denounced that the number of face-to-face attendees was limited, which unacceptably reduces the participation of the varied and broad spectrum of civil society organizations on our continent, he specified.

Goicochea refers that with a week to go before the start of the forum, the identity of the panelists and the online platform that will be used for the virtual option are unknown, while recalling that Cuba cannot access ZOOM, due to the laws of the blockade of USA, with which, if this platform is used, interaction with the Caribbean island is tacitly prohibited.