The European People’s Party (EPP) wants to push through its demand that the EU recognise Edmundo González as the “legitimate” president-elect of Venezuela, as the Spanish PP is also demanding. This political party is prepared to uphold his recognition, even if it means crossing a politically significant red line: breaking the cordon sanitaire around the far right in the European Parliament, which has been reinforced since the European elections in June. The PP is prepared to reach an agreement on this resolution with other parties further to the right and to distance itself from the position defended by the Social Democrats, Liberals, Greens and the minority left.
The European conservatives will vote on Thursday, in the second plenary session of this new European mandate, on a joint resolution on Venezuela that “recognizes Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate and democratically elected president of Venezuela” and “urges all EU states” to recognize the opposition candidate as such, according to the draft proposal. The problem for the conservatives: except for the extreme right, they are left alone.
Social Democrats, Liberals, Greens and the Left have withdrawn from the negotiating table on Tuesday to agree on a common text due to the lack of flexibility of the Popular Party, which described the recognition of González Urrutia as non-negotiable. This is pointed out by parliamentary sources of diverse persuasions. “The rest of the groups have said that we share 90%-95% of the resolution regarding the denunciation of repression, of the thousands of detainees, of the drift of recent years, of support for the sanctions established by the EU or the need for transparency” of the Venezuelan institutions, insists a socialist source. But the EPP did not want to negotiate the recognition of González, so, in the end, “the right and the extreme right were left negotiating alone,” corroborates another parliamentary source close to the discussions.
The gap between positions was also made clear during the debate on the situation in Venezuela in the plenary session late on Tuesday, where reproaches, mainly among Spanish MEPs, about the “politicisation” and “instrumentalisation” of Venezuela, flew throughout the session.
The leader of the Spanish Popular Party, Dolors Montserrat, has declared that Venezuela “does not need more silence in the face of exile and death,” nor “the double standards of governments like that of Pedro Sánchez, who one day calls Edmundo González a hero and 24 hours later denies his status as president-elect. And much less the complicity of observers like Zapatero, a democrat in theory, a whitewasher of the dictator in practice,” she denounced.
“Today our duty as members of the EU is to recognise the figure of Edmundo González as the elected president of Venezuela. Europe must be on the right side of history,” the conservative claimed, a position supported by Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch, for whom “now, the international community has to do its part and recognise Edmundo as the legitimate president”. ECR, the group of Conservatives and Reformists led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has also supported the proposal through Italian MEP Carlo Fidanza and has also announced that it will nominate González and opposition leader María Corina Machado for the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.
Knowing what’s happening outside means understanding what’s going to happen inside, so don’t miss anything.
KEEP READING
“The Sánchez government is criticised for not recognising Edmundo as president-elect. How many governments does the EPP have in Europe? How many foreign ministries? If it turns out that they all have the same policy as the Spanish government, why this exercise of cynicism that fundamentally weakens support for Venezuelan democracy?” replied the socialist Javi López during the debate, who accused the EPP of “instrumentalising” Venezuela “to divide this House and use it as a battering ram for national political interests”. The same term, battering ram “to profit from domestic politics”, was used by Diana Riba (ERC), who called for a “constructive role” from the EU to help “open a process of dialogue” in the Latin American country.
The cordon sanitaire could be completely broken if the resolution ends up being supported by the third far-right group formed in the new European Parliament, Europe of Sovereign Nations, which houses the most extreme members of Alternative for Germany (AfD). In fact, only with the vote of these three European far-right groups can the EPP guarantee that its resolution will be approved.
The EPP has taken the risk of abandoning this cordon sanitaire – a third source has called it “betrayal” – even though the impact of the negotiated text, beyond a political gesture, is minor: the resolutions of the European Parliament are not binding and so far, the sources recall, no EU country has indicated its willingness to recognise González’s victory.
The EU’s common position is not to recognise the “legitimacy” of Maduro’s victory, given that he has not presented all the electoral records that validate it. But the EU countries have not taken the next step – which the EPP and PP are demanding – of recognising González. They are merely stating that the evidence – the copies of the records recorded by the opposition, as well as the assessments of international expert groups – point to him being the winner.
On Tuesday, only the EPP and the negotiators from ECR and Patriots for Europe, the new group formed by Fidesz, the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, to which Vox also belongs, remained at the negotiating table to find a joint resolution. After the other groups left, sources familiar with the discussions say that the EPP, ECR and Patriots took no more than five minutes to come up with the agreed resolution, which must be presented before Wednesday at noon. ECR has already confirmed to this newspaper that it will add its signature to the EPP’s joint resolution. The Patriots group is considering it, but assures that it has not yet decided.
Among the other parties, there are also wide differences when it comes to proposing a resolution on Venezuela, but parliamentary sources indicate that they are exploring the possibility of negotiating a common resolution text at least between the social democrats of S&D, the liberals of Renew and, perhaps, with the support of the Greens. They regret the drift of the EPP on an issue like Venezuela which, the socialists emphasize, until now achieved the consensus of the European parliamentary groups.
“In Venezuela we have often come to an agreement; given the situation, it would make sense for there to be a large majority on this issue,” say people familiar with the case, who deplore a change in the “dynamics” on this issue, especially when, they stress, there is consensus on the root of the problem.
The basis for the negotiations would be the resolution proposal presented, among others, by the PNV MEP Oihane Agirregoitia on behalf of Renew, which “stresses that Edmundo González appears to be the winner of the presidential elections by a large majority, according to the copies of the minutes made public so far.” A reason why, the resolution adds, “it hopes, in this sense, that on January 10, 2025, Edmundo González will be sworn in as President of Venezuela,” on the date scheduled for the inauguration of the new Government in Caracas. Although this text goes beyond that proposed by the Social Democrats, they say they are willing to use this language, which, above all, gives the time margin they are looking for to the negotiations led in the region by Brazil and Colombia to achieve an agreed solution between Venezuelans.
#European #negotiating #European #Parliament #recognition #Edmundo #González #president #Venezuela