Spring awakening

"Both sides are serious about this," says Bert Hoffmann, of the Hamburg-based think tank GIGA. Even if, officially, both Cuba and the US are still insisting that their maximum requirements be met in the ongoing talks over new diplomatic relations, Hoffmann is convinced that the rapprochement between the two countries is proceeding apace.

Hoffmann is a Cuba expert who has been following political and economic developments on the island since the 1990s. He's overwhelmed by the current climate of enthusiasm there. "The atmosphere is tremendous," he says, recalling his most recent visit, in late January. "Expectations are almost excessive."

Ever since the spectacular declaration on December 17, 2014, when US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro simultaneously announced the normalization of diplomatic relations between their countries, visitors from the United States have been hotfooting it to Havana. And not just politicians, either - business people are also exploring opportunities on the island.

Capitalist charm offensive

Google, Apple, Netflix, and other Internet companies have already announced their entry into the Cuban market; and one US governor will soon pay a visit to the Castro regime for the first time: Andrew Cuomo, governor of the state of New York, is planning to travel to Havana on April 20.

So it's not unlikely that the two countries will soon end their diplomatic ice age, which has lasted more than 50 years. The beginning of April is under discussion as a possible date for the reopening of the embassies, just before the next Summit of the Americas run by the Organization of American States (OAS). The OAS summit will take place on April 10 and 11 in Panama City, and this year, for the first time, Cuba is to be a participant.

But what about the historical arch enemies' maximum requirements? Can there even be successful negotiation as long as the US trade embargo is still in force?

Cold Warriors on the defensive

Hoffmann is optimistic that the end of a Cold War relic is in sight. "Even if the Republican majority [in the US Congress] is disinclined to grant Obama political successes, the genie is out of the bottle," he said, adding that advocates of the embargo are now on the defensive.

Havana is also demanding the return of the US base Guantanamo, and for Cuba to be removed from the US' black list of states that sponsor terrorism. For its part, the US is insisting on, among other things, freedom of speech, human rights, and for Cubans to be given free access to the American embassy.

Experts see the removal of Cuba from the terrorism black list as the easiest concession. Obama asked US Secretary of State John Kerry to review the situation in January, right at the start of the negotiation process.

It's certainly true that there's no other "terrorist state" with which the US has such close relations as Cuba. Every year around 400,000 Cubans who live in exile in the United States return to the island to visit relatives. Furthermore, in 2014 some 100,000 US citizens traveled to Cuba legally under one of the twelve permitted categories of travel - these include "educational travel."

Brussels also wants to negotiate

Following the initial round of negotiations between Washington and Havana in January, the EU also declared an interest in normalizing relations. A fresh round of diplomatic talks is now set to take place in Brussels on March 4 and 5.

Despite all the progress and reforms, the political awakening is not yet making itself felt in daily life on the island. "They're short of everything," says Rubens Barbosa from the Brazilian industrial association Fiesp in Sao Paulo, who also visited Cuba in late January. "The people just want to achieve a minimum level of prosperity, regardless of ideological precepts."

Brazil is the second-biggest supplier of goods to Cuba after China, setting aside oil deliveries from Venezuela. The Brazilian development bank BNDES also financed the development of the container port Mariel, west of Havana, which cost just under one billion US dollars.

The Brazilian industrialist Barbosa predicts that the Cuban government will continue to exercise "strict control" over both politics and the economy. And the Cuba expert Bert Hoffmann also believes that the resumption of diplomatic relations will not automatically initiate a democratic turnaround.

"Havana is trying to temper expectations of more extensive change," Hoffmann says. The government, he adds, is very clear that the reform process must not be allowed to call the political system into question. "Castro won't want there to be any room for doubt about that," says Hoffmann.