While the Foreign Ministry is trying to quell the diplomatic crisis with Venezuela, the PP is fanning the flames. Minister José Manuel Albares played down the decision by his Venezuelan counterpart, Iván Gil, to recall his ambassador in Madrid, Gladys Gutiérrez, for consultations and to summon the head of the Spanish mission in Caracas, Ramón Santos, to express his protest. These are “sovereign decisions” of the Venezuelan government about which “there is nothing to comment,” Albares told RNE, refusing to enter into controversy.
After receiving the Spanish ambassador at the headquarters of his Ministry, the Venezuelan foreign minister published a note through his Telegram channel in which he claimed to have stated that his country “will not allow any interventionist action by the Government of Spain in matters that are the exclusive responsibility of Venezuelans” and “will adopt the necessary measures to protect its sovereignty.” For the moment, however, the protest remains at the rhetorical level and does not include the adoption of any practical measures.
The trigger for Caracas’ complaints was a statement by the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, who described Maduro’s regime as a “dictatorship,” something that no member of the government had done until now. At the presentation of a book by Julia Navarro, Robles mentioned on Thursday night the Ukrainians “massacred by Putin,” the Afghan women erased from public life by the Taliban, and also “the men and women who have had to leave Venezuela precisely because of the dictatorship they live under.” Among them, she added, was Edmundo González Urrutia, the former opposition candidate and presumed winner of the July 28 elections who has been seeking asylum in Spain since last weekend.
The latter was received on Thursday at the Moncloa palace, but the government was extremely careful to downplay the institutional profile of the visit – only a few images were distributed in which the former opposition candidate and his daughter were seen walking with Pedro Sánchez through the gardens of the official residence – so as not to irritate Maduro. Asked specifically, Albares avoided calling the Chavista regime a “dictatorship”, as his Cabinet colleague had done, arguing that the Foreign Minister “is the last person who has to enter and give any kind of qualification” to a foreign government.
The Foreign Ministry is redoubling its efforts to smooth things over and prevent the rupture of diplomatic, consular and economic relations between the two countries, as threatened on Wednesday by Jorge Rodríguez, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, controlled by Chavismo. The Government, according to the sources consulted, has no intention of applying reciprocity and recalling its ambassador in Caracas for consultations, as suggested by the vice-secretary of Institutional Affairs of the PP, Esteban González Pons. “It seems unbelievable that this Government has withdrawn the ambassador from Argentina, which President Sánchez may not like, but it is a democracy; and yet it keeps him in Venezuela, which although Sánchez does not see it, is a dictatorship,” he declared.
The reason is simple: the government does not want to blow up its communication channels with Chavismo. It believes that the only way out of the Venezuelan crisis is a negotiated agreement between Maduro and the opposition, and it wants to maintain the capacity to communicate with both parties, government sources explain. These channels served to get Edmundo González Urrutia and his wife out of the country last Saturday and in recent years have allowed the release of a good number of political prisoners, they add.
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On the contrary, the PP believes that the only effective way is to increase the pressure on Maduro to the maximum to force him to throw in the towel. “The Government has not only ignored the electoral result in Venezuela, but has also ignored the mandate of the Congress of Deputies to recognise the winner of the Venezuelan elections as president-elect,” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on a visit to Athens (Greece), in reference to the non-binding proposal approved on Wednesday by the plenary session of the lower house. The leader of the PP expressed his conviction that the European Parliament will approve next week a resolution similar to that of the Congress that will recognise Edmundo González as president-elect of Venezuela; which, he added, “is a message to Spanish foreign policy and to the position of Mr Sánchez.”
Debate in the European Parliament on Tuesday
The draft resolution presented by the European People’s Party, at the request of the Spanish Popular Party, urges “all EU Member States to recognise Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate and democratically elected president of Venezuela”. It asks them to “do everything possible to ensure that he can take office on 10 January 2025”, when Maduro’s current presidential term ends. In addition, the Popular Party calls on the EU and its 27 Member States “to request an international arrest warrant against Maduro for crimes against humanity” and to apply sanctions to the Venezuelan president, his inner circle, their families and all those responsible for human rights violations in the country.
The text is not final, as the groups have until Monday to present their own initiatives and until Wednesday to announce a joint proposal, since a resolution agreed by various forces has a better chance of success. Despite preparing their own drafts, the EPP, the liberals of Renew and the social democrats of S&D are in talks with the idea of agreeing on a common text to be put to the vote on Thursday, parliamentary sources confirmed.
This is a difficult issue, given the disparity of the starting points: the popular proposal that Edmundo González be recognised as the elected president is a red line for S&D. The Social Democrats believe that there is still room for negotiation with Caracas, especially given the support of several countries in the region, with Brazil and Colombia at the forefront, to seek a negotiated solution. Therefore, they believe that recognising the former opposition candidate as the winner of the elections not only goes against the current common position of the EU – not validating Maduro’s victory, but also not that of González – but could affect the negotiations to find an agreed solution.
Experts also believe that the inclusion, both in the proposal to be debated in the European Parliament and in the one presented last Wednesday by the Popular Group in the Senate, of a call for “an arrest warrant to be issued against Nicolás Maduro” for crimes against humanity could further tighten the Venezuelan president’s grip on office for fear of ending up in prison if he steps down.
The list of guests for the European Parliament debate in Strasbourg includes the name of the former mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, who has become the spokesman for the Venezuelan opposition in Spain, but not Edmundo González himself. The latter met this Friday with two former Spanish Prime Ministers: Mariano Rajoy and Felipe González. The former, according to sources close to him, congratulated him as the “winner” of the elections and conveyed his wish that democracy be established in his country “with him as president”: while the latter described him as “president-elect of Venezuela”, according to the Felipe González Foundation.
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