The Diplomat
People’s Party asked yesterday for explanations to the Government after the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, two Secretaries of State and several leaders of the PSOE met with two Venezuelan members of the Assembly that Spain does not recognize and that are part of a party that was ‘usurped’ by judicial decision.
In a battery of questions to the Executive, the PP spokeswoman in the Congress’ Foreign Affairs Commission, Valentina Martínez-Ferro, recalls the contacts held, days ago, with Óscar Ronderos and Pedro José Rojas, by Albares, the Secretary of State for Latin America, Juan Fernández Trigo, the Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Pilar Cancela, who is also secretary of the PSOE abroad; and other socialist deputies.
In the questions, to which The Diplomat had access, Martínez-Ferro is interested in knowing if the Foreign Ministry knew that “these individuals usurped a party such as Acción Democrática in Venezuela and do not represent the Venezuelan people”, in reference to the fact that in June 2020, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela proceeded to remove the leadership of this opposition party, led by Henri Ramos Allup, to put in its place a leadership considered more akin to the theses of the Government of Nicolás Maduro.
Besides, she wants to know the reason for the meetings, why they were not included in the agendas of the Minister and the Secretaries of State and if any kind of agreement was reached.
The MP questions whether the meetings are “a form of implicit recognition” to the regime of Nicolás Maduro, which the Government supposedly does not recognize and asks the Executive to clarify its current position on the matter.
Likewise, she wants to know if the Executive “is going to apologize for confusing party activities with Government activities” as a result of these contacts, by which many Venezuelans “feel hurt”.
Finally, she stresses that these meetings have taken place on the eve of the Summit of the Americas, to which the Minister of Foreign Affairs has been invited, but not representatives of the Maduro regime. For this reason, she asks if the Government considers that these meetings favor international credibility and asks: “Are we a reliable ally for the United States with these gestures?”.
The Spanish Government, as well as the EU as a whole, did not recognize the result of the December 2020 parliamentary elections in which the two MPs were elected, who ran for the party that the opposition qualifies as “usurped” as a result of the judicial decision.
