Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in Brussels on Thursday that, one month after the presidential elections in Venezuela, it is time to accept that the government of Nicolás Maduro – which has claimed a victory that has not been recognised by the opposition or internationally – is not going to present all the electoral records as requested. What is needed now, Albares stressed at the beginning of an informal meeting with his European peers, is to accept this situation, make it clear that in these circumstances “there will be no electoral recognition” by the EU and begin to jointly seek “tools” to favour a “peaceful” and “genuinely Venezuelan” solution.
To this end, the heads of European diplomacy will hear the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, via videoconference on Thursday, according to the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, who shares the Spanish position of rejecting any electoral recognition as long as it is not verifiable.
“The situation in Venezuela is critical,” Borrell said. “That is why I have invited Edmundo, the candidate who has presented results that show that Maduro has not won these elections, to address the ministers,” Borrell explained at the start of the informal council, which will discuss Venezuela at the request of Spain, as well as the war in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East, including the possibility of issuing sanctions against some ultra-right ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The head of European diplomacy has expressed great concern about the “repression” in the South American country, where some opposition staff “have been arrested and have disappeared,” he denounced. “We are very concerned about the situation of the opposition leaders,” he insisted, while expressing his hope that González’s statements will help the ministers to make a decisive decision. “I hope that, at the end of the day, the ministers will decide what to say about the result of these elections.”
In their latest joint statement, issued last Saturday, the Twenty-Seven described Caracas’ judicial endorsements of the election results as “insufficient” and warned that “only complete and independently verifiable results will be accepted and recognized, to ensure that the will of the Venezuelan people is respected.”
Spain, supported by Borrell, wants to go further and make it clear that the election results will not be accepted in any way.
“Surrendering to the evidence”
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“More than enough time has passed requesting the minutes and we have to give in to the evidence that these minutes are not going to be presented. There is no will to present them, therefore, to verify them,” Albares said in this regard. Hence, he expects the support of his European colleagues to make it clear that the EU is not going to “recognize an electoral victory that cannot be verified and that both the Carter Center and the United Nations panel of experts have indicated that there are more than doubts about it.”
From there, he continued, we must analyze what “tools” are available to achieve the objective of “a peaceful solution between Venezuelans, genuinely Venezuelan, that is not imposed from abroad and that allows a negotiation between the Government and the opposition with the objective that Spain has of having the democratically expressed will of the Venezuelans triumph,” he added.
Albares has avoided evoking the possibility of sanctions and has also ruled out recognizing Edmundo González as president-elect, in a similar way to what was done at the time with opposition leader Juan Guaidó, despite the fact that in their last joint declaration, the Twenty-Seven stated that, “according to the public copies of the minutes, Edmundo González Urrutia appears to be the winner of the presidential elections by a significant majority.”
“This is not the common position of the EU at this time,” the Spanish minister concluded, calling for “intelligent action” and avoiding “grandiose phrases that could be very effective for 24 hours, but very ineffective in achieving a definitive Venezuelan solution.” For Spain, the possibility raised by Brazil of repeating elections is also nothing more than an “intellectual hypothesis” given that, he recalled, “both the opposition and the Government rule it out,” so “it is not an option at this time,” he added.
“The most important thing is that we achieve dialogue, that negotiation, that the Government and the opposition can sit down together. That has to be the first step (…). We have to reflect very clearly on how the EU should position itself,” concluded Albares.
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