EU should engage post-Castro Cuba

The financial daily says Fidel Castro's stomach operation has "usefully focused attention on the Cuban leader's mortality and the inevitability of a transition to a post-Castro Cuba, even if this is not imminent. The US and European Union must think carefully about how they respond to the Cuban government's own emerging plans to handle these changes and take care not to inflame tensions, especially among exile groups who - judging by the scenes of wild celebration on Monday night in Miami - harbour hopes of radical and immediate change. Cuba's political system is undemocratic and centralised at the moment around one man. But its Communist party nevertheless enjoys a degree of legitimacy that, for example, its counterparts in the eastern Europe of the 1980s never did." The US and EU "should prepare now to start engaging the Cuban authorities once Mr. Castro leaves the scene."

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