President Raúl Castro is making some significant gestures ahead of the key Cuban Communist party (PCC) congress from 16 to 19 April. The government has just released the last of the 75 dissidents imprisoned after a crackdown in 2003, ending a process it began last July, after mediation by the Roman Catholic Church and Spain. The release of the dissidents has clear economic overtones. It will remove a major impediment to better ties with the European Union (EU), and could see the Common Position replaced by a political and economic association agreement in the not too distant future - much coveted by the Cuban government as it wrestles with seismic changes to the country's economic system. Castro promoted the economy and planning minister, Marino Murillo, to the position of economics supremo to oversee the reforms discussed at the congress.
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