European Union MP Questions Commission on CC Forced Labor

[MrBirdman]

As expected, Brussels has taken notice of the report. An MPE from Spain in the right-wing PfE coalition submitted questions to the Commission on the original report before the HSA response to Halfwheel confirming it. If my reading of the EU constitution is correct, the Commission has until mid-November to reply. 

It’s possible that this development could explain the Halfwheel email, which arrived a week after this submission. It may have seemed incomprehensible at the time, but faced with a potential Commission inquiry the Tabacuba/HSA leadership may have judged the risk of total denial to be greater than the PR hit of admitting to a “voluntary” program. If the news would’ve come out in the Commission’s response anyway, it makes sense to get ahead of it. It puts the EU in the position of either accepting their response or conducting a difficult independent inquiry. 

I will keep an eye out and post the Commission response when it arrives.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-10-2025-003809_EN.html

A report entitled ‘Cuba’s prison business: 60 000 prisoners are used as slave labour’ reveals that the Cuban regime is exploiting prisoners as slave labour, forcing them to produce marabou charcoal, tobacco and other goods in inhuman conditions. These products are then sold on European markets, chiefly in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.

This practice, which this report criticises and documents with evidence and testimonies, constitutes modern slavery, expressly prohibited under the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU Forced Labour Regulation and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

In light of the above:

• 1.Is the Commission aware of this state of affairs? Has it begun any investigation to verify compliance with European legislation on forced labour and demand that those responsible be held accountable?
• 2.What specific measures does the Commission intend to take to ensure that products made using forced labour in Cuban prisons neither enter nor are sold on the internal market?

[NYGuido]

Well, it was only a matter of time. This is the exact kind of thing I would expect the EU to sink its teeth into, though I more am surprised it came before the HSA response (I guess bureaucrats get things right sometimes).

Europe already seems increasingly antagonistic toward tobacco, including cigars. This is just adding fuel to the fire from a different angle, and it allows non-Cuban marcas to differentiate themselves with regulators as being slave-labor-free and potentially set them up for restrictions on Cubans that will benefit the New World producers.