The partisan use of relations with Venezuela by the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro does not contribute to strengthening Spain’s international position in Latin America, a region that, together with the Mediterranean and European politics, should constitute the most stable core of our foreign action. This was the case from the beginning of the transition until the moment when the Atlanticist turn of the Azores, the result of a voluntarism that mixed ideology and vanity in equal parts, destroyed the hard diplomatic work carried out by the first three presidents of democracy. Since then, the reconstruction of the position achieved by Spain in the last decade of the last century has never been complete. First, because recovering reliability and prestige once they are lost is not easy in the international arena. But secondly, and more seriously, because the extravagant idea of making Spain the bridgehead of the United States in the European Union led to the belief, even among some prominent actors in foreign policy, that the national interest depended exclusively on the political decisions of the government in power, independently of more stable factors such as geography, economic development, collective perceptions or consolidated alliances.
The Atlanticist turn in the Azores affected Spain’s role in the EU by placing it in an eccentric position with respect to internal balances, and only in recent years has it been possible to regain influence thanks to fundamental political initiatives in the Council and also to Italy’s retreat due to the ideological affiliation of Giorgia Meloni’s government. As regards the Mediterranean, the Atlanticist turn led to a return to what the author of the last great design of Spain’s foreign relations, Fernando Morán, called Africanism, that is, a kind of policy in which progress in relations with Morocco automatically deteriorates relations with Algeria, and vice versa. The damage caused then has not yet found an accommodation, due, among other reasons, to the persistence of two controversies of geostrategic scope such as the future of the Sahara and the denial of the rights of the Palestinians by Israel, between which the Abraham Accords established a link that is difficult for Spain to manage. Finally, the Atlanticist turn affected relations with Latin America because it ended up projecting the deep ideological division that the continent suffers into the political struggle in our country.
In the Venezuelan crisis, the Spanish government has aligned itself with the countries that demand the presentation of the minutes that would allow the election results to be known and, in addition, the end of the repression against the opposition, which resulted in around twenty deaths and hundreds of arrests. Going further, as the PP intends to do by demanding that the opposition candidate be recognised, is to engage in a practice that could end up turning against democrats in Venezuela and around the world: validating something as decisive as the election of its head of state outside the institutional procedures of a country. Between denouncing the manipulation of the institutions perpetrated by the Maduro government and recognising the opposition candidate from outside, there is a distance that, if not covered by its steps, could lead to an open confrontation between the parties. From the statements of the PP spokespersons it is clear that their strategy consists of covering that distance at a gallop, and not so much because, in their analysis, the foreseeable consequences are the best for Venezuela and for Spain, but because they think they can be exploited against the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
The haste with which the Popular Party intends to act is not, however, the only risk in dealing with the Venezuelan crisis; the other risk lies in not going at all the distance between Maduro’s denunciation and Edmundo González’s recognition. This is the risk to which former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero would be exposing himself. The varied rumours about his relationship with the Venezuelan regime should not replace the more substantial analysis of the difficult institutional position in which he has placed himself and, in turn, placed Spain. And not only now, by keeping silent when all the observers have made their reports public, but also before, by agreeing at the time to form part of the organisations, foundations and personalities that Maduro allowed to witness the development of the elections. By assuming the role of observer, the former president acquired an implicit commitment: to endorse the process, if that had been his conclusion, or to denounce it, if he saw signs of fraud. What is not possible is that the role of observer that he accepted will be transformed into that of mediator, as those who try to justify his silence claim. Among other reasons, because the former president’s silence has confirmed the distrust of the Venezuelan opposition, and in these conditions it does not seem feasible in principle that he will lead any mediation.
Before the electoral process began, the European Union was banned from being an observer. Former President Zapatero may have tried hard to get the Maduro regime to lift the ban, but from the moment it was not lifted, he, as former President of a European country, should have unequivocally expressed the hierarchy of his institutional loyalties: remaining as an observer, at that time, meant that his European loyalty was not the first. When, later, a delegation from the Popular Party was not allowed to enter Venezuela, the dilemma about the hierarchy of loyalties was reproduced and, as in the case of the Union, the former President may also have made arrangements and the arrangements may have failed. In this case, the institutional position of the former President obliged him at least to make some kind of statement because, whether or not they tried to make a spectacle of their gesture, the truth is that the Popular Party deputies were still members of the Spanish Parliament. Lastly, Rodríguez Zapatero has not spoken out, even as the leaders of the Puebla Group have been increasingly denouncing electoral fraud in Venezuela.
At this point, it is pointless to continue speculating about why Zapatero is silent. Rather, it is about demanding that he complete the mission he agreed to carry out, despite all the risks that hovered over it. The fact that former President Zapatero does not speak out about what he has seen in Venezuela is reprehensible for many reasons. Some, the most important, are institutional, because the words and silences of a former President of the Spanish Government affect the prestige of Spanish democracy. Other reasons, on the contrary, are political, and have to do with the fact that, according to the former President’s closest circle, he and other members of his governments maintain political activity outside the ordinary channels of diplomacy in sensitive areas of Spain’s foreign action, such as Morocco, Equatorial Guinea and, if some recent press reports are true, China and other Asian powers. And there is a final reason, more ideological, even sentimental if you prefer, and that is that the democratic left in Spain does not deserve that, having disassociated itself from the political myths forged in Latin America, the right and the extreme right can continue to reproach it with respect to Venezuela for the clamorous, unintelligible and unacceptable silence of a former socialist president, justifying there, in addition, why the essential external consensus is broken.
#Venezuela #steps #gallop