The European Parliament will host today a forum convened by The Left group to express solidarity with Cuba and demand an end to the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States.
 
Members of the European Parliament, solidarity organizations in the old continent, Cuban residents, specialists, and diplomats will participate in the event, which includes the presence of the deputies to the National Assembly of the People's Power of the Island, Felix Martinez and Enrique Aleman.
 
Called "Let Cuba Live: End the Blockade", the meeting will focus on two main topics: the tightening of the siege and its impact on the island's population and the extraterritorial effects of that policy.
 
Sandra Pereira MEP (Portugal) will moderate the debate on the tightening of the blockade, in which her colleague in the European Parliament Manu Pineda (Spain), who chairs the group of Friendship with Cuba in the institution, and the deputies of the Caribbean country Martínez and Alemán will intervene.
 
As for the discussions on the extraterritoriality of Washington's aggressions and the European Union’s (EU) responses, French MEP Leila Chaibi will be in charge of moderating.
 
Cuba's ambassador to Belgium and the EU, Yaira Jimenez, will speak on the second topic, as will the secretary of the Belgian Coordinating Committee for the End of the Blockade against Cuba, Wim Leysens, and jurist Elizabeth Valdes-Miranda.
 
In the call to the solidarity forum, Pineda denounced the hostile U.S. policy towards the island and considered it a punishment for the decision of its people to embark on a sovereign path.
 
The Spanish MEP stressed that year after year the UN condemns the siege, referring to the 30 resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly since 1992, a text that demands the end of that policy, and that this month received the support of 185 member states of the multilateral body.