After meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez in Havana, Federica Mogherini, who serves as High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has announced that the European Union and Cuba will intensify negotiations aimed at normalizing their ties.

As reported by the BBC, Mogherini, the highest-ranking EU official to visit communist Cuba for several years, expressed hope that the two sides could sign an agreement by the end of 2015.

Mogherini’s visit to the communist island is seen as sign of an overall ongoing strengthening of ties between Cuba and the West which has been severed after decades of Cold War tensions.

Cuba and the U.S. jointly announced in December that the two countries would be improving their ties.

Cuba and the U.S. have had frozen ties since 1961.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who also met Cuban leaders in Havana on Tuesday, praised the emerging relations between in the U.S. and Cuba.

Cuba was allied with a then-communist Moscow during the Cold War.

Although relations between Cuba and the E.U. have not been as strained as the relationship between between Cuba and the U.S., the E.U. had, until, 2008, economic sanctions in place against the island nation.

Under its 1996 Common Position, the E.U. had restricted its ties with the Cuban government until reforms were made in areas such as democracy, a multi-party system, human rights, as well as fundamental freedoms.

The E.U. announced in 2014 that it would begin to enter into negotiations with Cuba in order to restore full bilateral relations.

The negotiations were deemed slow by Mogherini as the two sides only held three meetings in 2014.

The Cuban foreign minister and Mogherini are set to meet again at Summit of the Americas on April 22 in Brussels.