The Workers Party has welcomed the lifting of European Union sanctions against Cuba but has said that the EU must stop interfering in the internal affairs of Cuba.

Workers Party President Michael Finnegan said that there was no justification whatsoever for the EU sanctions on Cuba and that the EU was merely pandering to the diktats of the United States in trying to undermine Cuba’s socialist government.

Mr. Finnegan said that the removal of the sanctions with the threat that they might be re-imposed amounted to a “cat and mouse” game on the part of the European Union to try and impose its own will and a neo-liberal agenda on a sovereign state.  He added that this was the same neo-liberal agenda which had well and truly rejected by the Irish people last week.

“The Irish government must now show its own independence on this matter by pressing harder at the United Nations against the illegal US embargo against Cuba.  I am also calling on the Department of Foreign Affairs to give due respect to the Cuban people and end the icy attitude which they continuously show towards Cuba”, said Mr. Finnegan.