Cuba’s massive debt to Paris Club has not been paid: ‘negotiations’ begin in Havana

From our Bureau of Deadbeat Parasitic Latrine American Totalitarian Hellholes with some assistance from our Bureau of Pathetic Fools Who Lend Money to Deadbeat Parasitic Latrine American Totalitarian Hellholes

Turn on the dramatic music, full of drum rolls and menacing tones! The clock is running out on Castro, Inc.. Aaaah, but that clock never seems to run out.

“Negotiations” between the Paris Club creditors and Castro, Inc. are under way in Havana. The end result will most probably be some kind of reordering of the debt, reducing the total amount and giving Castro, Inc. several more years to pay it.

This has been going for a very, very long time. Aaaah, if only those weasels at the Paris Club were less stupid. Imagine what would happen if they were to say, basta, no more of this nonsense. Pay all you owe right now, or else . . .!

But what would that “else” be? Hard to imagine.

Loosely translated from Diario de Cuba

The Cuban regime ratified on Wednesday before its Paris Club creditors, one of its main international debt holders in Havana, its promise that it will honor its financial commitments with that entity “despite the acute economic crisis that the country is going through “.

According to the state-run Cuban News Agency (ACN), which barely offered details about the negotiations, this was the main message conveyed by the Vice Prime Minister and head of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Ricardo Cabrisas, to the Club’s negotiators who arrived in the Cuban capital

The meeting was also attended by Joaquín Alonso, Minister-President of the Central Bank of Cuba.

William Roos and Fabien Bertho, co-president and secretary of the Paris Club, respectively, held the first of two working sessions in Havana on Wednesday, where they met with Cabrisas, who has been in charge of these negotiations for years and was the the first renegotiator of the Cuban external debt in the name of Raúl Castro in 2015, after Fidel Castro announced in 1986 that the lump sum acquired in loans by his regime was “unpayable and uncollectible.”

Cabrisas reiterated, as the regime he represents always does, that “the complex economic and financial situation of the Island has worsened due to the intensification of United States sanctions,” the report indicated.

The official added to this the inclusion of Cuba in Washington’s list of countries sponsoring terrorism, “which hinders Havana’s access to sources of financing and foreign investment,” when the country, he commented, “needs foreign currency for its economic development and social”, as well as to “comply with its obligations”.

The Cuban deputy prime minister recalled that the agreement signed in 2015 with the Paris Club to reorder the short and medium-term Cuban debt with 14 States, including Spain, France and Japan, is periodically reviewed.

Through this pact, Havana was forgiven 8,500 million dollars of a total debt of 11,000 million, with the commitment to pay the remaining amount in installments until 2023.

However, the Island’s regime partially failed to comply with its obligations in 2019, and in 2020 it declared itself incapable of making the corresponding payment.

After that, Havana requested a two-year moratorium for a total of some 200 million in arrears to the Paris Club, which granted a one-year pardon, with the possibility of renegotiating the debt.