The Diplomat
Driving licenses issued by Venezuelan authorities are no longer valid in Spain due to their “legal insecurity” and “difficulties in determining their authenticity”.
Last Tuesday, the Council of Ministers approved the suspension of the application of the Exchange of Letters between Spain and Venezuela constituting the Agreement on the reciprocal recognition and exchange of national driving licenses, an international treaty signed in Caracas on May 16, 2005 and which entered into force for both parties on August 26, 2005.
In August 2017, as reported by the Council of Ministers, problems began to arise in the implementation of the agreement because the Venezuelan competent authorities had started to issue a new model of driving license in PDF format, replacing the traditional license in the form of a plastic card, which could be downloaded and printed by its holder as many times as he/she wished.
Therefore, and “in order to solve the situation of legal insecurity caused by the difficulties in determining the authenticity of Venezuelan driving licenses”, it was proposed in a note verbale, at the request of the Directorate General of Traffic (DGT), to proceed to the suspension of the application of the Exchange of Letters, by virtue of the article of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969, and, in parallel, to negotiate with Venezuela an amendment that would allow the establishment of a common knowledge control test for applicants for the Venezuelan equivalent of Spanish Group 1 driving licenses, “making the corresponding modifications to the Exchange of Letters”.
Likewise, it was considered convenient to try to reach an agreement with the Venezuelan authorities, through diplomatic channels, on the need to suspend the mutual application of the agreement. After the last attempt, materialized in a note verbale dated December 28, 2021, and once the diplomatic channel had been exhausted as no result had been obtained to date, those responsible for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in charge of relations with Venezuela “confirmed the convenience of requesting the approval of said suspension”.
