In 2008, the European Union (EU) and Cuba agreed to resume full relations and cooperation activities. Cuba is a founding member of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. At the end of 2012, tens of thousands of Cuban medical personnel worked abroad, with as many as 30,000 doctors in Venezuela alone via the two countries' oil-for-doctors programme.As the article discusses, the oil-for-doctors programme has not been welcomed uncritically in Venezuela. The initial impetus for Cuban doctors' going to Venezuela was a Chavez-government welfare project called ''Misión Barrio Adentro'' ().