Eduardo González
The Spanish Government yesterday regretted the decision of the Government of Venezuela to reject the presence of electoral observers from the European Union in the presidential elections on July 28 in retaliation for the decision of the EU Council to renew sanctions on the regime of Nicolás Maduro until January 2025.
“Spain regrets the withdrawal of the invitation to the European Union Electoral Observation Mission to the presidential elections in Venezuela,” sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared to The Diplomat. “Spain is committed to holding credible, inclusive and competitive elections,” they added.
The EU Foreign Affairs Council had renewed in November 2023, for a period of six months instead of a year, the sanctions against Venezuela, after Spain recommended the review of these measures in response to the Barbados Agreement signed a month before between the opposition and the Government for the holding of presidential elections in 2024.
However, after the maneuvers of the Bolivarian regime to disqualify the opposition candidate María Corina Machado and to prevent the presence of another alternative candidate, Corina Yoris, the EU decided in mid-May to extend the “restrictive measures” against several members of the Government and the Chavista environment until January 10, 2025.
In response to this “unilateral” decision, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) issued a statement on May 29 in which it accused the EU of acting as “a biased and aggressive actor,” warning that “no foreign body has powers to decide on Venezuela’s electoral oversight program” and warned that, “as long as the European Union does not lift all of the coercive, unilateral and genocidal sanctions imposed against the people of Venezuela (…), its presence in “no electoral process held in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”
European diplomatic sources consulted by the Europa Press agency warned this Tuesday that sending observers to Venezuela is, at this point, “quite unlikely,” but they specified that the final decision will correspond to the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell. , based on preliminary reports from an exploratory mission that visited Venezuela in April to prepare the ground.
