<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Congress of Deputies yesterday approved the Non-Law Proposition in which the Government is asked to recognize the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as the elected president of Venezuela.</strong></h4> The motion, presented by the PP, has been approved thanks to the support of the PNV, which allowed it to reach a total of 177 favorable votes. 164 deputies voted against the proposal, including those from PSOE and Sumar, which make up the coalition government. There was also one abstention, which was the former Minister of Transport and former member of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos. Ábalos was expelled from the party after the arrest of his former advisor Koldo García for allegedly collecting illegal commissions in the purchase of masks, but he did not resign from his seat and is part of the Mixed Group. The former minister had warned on several occasions that he would vote in conscience, but finally chose to abstain so as not to be in opposition to the coalition government of PSOE and Sumar. The result of the vote was practically a foregone conclusion since last Tuesday, after the spokesman for the PNV in Congress, Aitor Esteban, announced (first to the press and later during the vote in the plenary session) his party's position. The nationalist leader also regretted the use of Venezuela “for the two major parties to throw darts at each other” and positively valued the position of the Government if its objective is to improve mediation efforts and facilitate asylum for the Venezuelan people. Specifically, the Proposition calls for the recognition of González Urrutia as “winner of the presidential elections held on July 28, 2024 in Venezuela.” The vote took place three days after the arrival of the opposition leader in Madrid on a Spanish Air Force plane, after the Government had promised to grant him political asylum. The text also requests that the Government lead the recognition of González in European institutions and international bodies and guarantee respect for the vote of Venezuelans to begin a transition process towards a system of rights based on the recognition of the results, with the aim of ensuring the inauguration of González Urrutia as the new president.” The motion categorically rejects “any option that denies the Venezuelan people the exercise of their sovereignty, such as a repeat election or a coalition government that excludes the popular mandate,” and demands “that the Maduro regime immediately cease the repression of peaceful protests and the release of all political prisoners, including the suspension of arbitrary detentions, intimidation of citizens and the siege of diplomatic representations.” In addition, it promotes before the European Union the reinstatement and expansion of sanctions against the leaders of the Maduro regime. As it is a non-binding text, and therefore a non-binding proposal, the Government will not be obliged to recognize González Urrutia. However, the approval should have a strong symbolic content for the Venezuelan opposition, since, through this text, the Spanish Executive receives the ‘de facto’ mandate from the Lower House to officially recognize the victory of the candidate of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD). <h5><strong>Break relations with Spain</strong></h5> <strong>The Venezuelan Parliament</strong>, controlled by Chavismo, reacted, in turn, <strong>preparing a resolution that urges the Government of Nicolás Maduro to break "all relations" diplomatic, consular, economic and commercial with Spain.</strong> In a statement published on the official website of the National Assembly, an extraordinary session is announced to debate the<strong> "rejection of the rude and interventionist decision adopted by the Spanish extreme right</strong> (...) to ignore the popular victory of Nicolás Maduro Moros." During the session on Wednesday, the president of the National Assembly (AN, Legislative), the official<strong> Jorge Rodríguez</strong>, asked the Foreign Policy Commission to draft a resolution for the Plenary to approve "peremptorily", in which it requests "the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to immediately break all relations" with Spain "Let all representatives of the legation of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain and all consulates and all consuls leave here and we bring our own from there, let them stay with their murderers, with their coup plotters, with their fascists, with their violent people," said the president of the Assembly, brother of the executive vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. Rodríguez also requested that the resolution establish that "all commercial activities of Spanish companies be immediately ceased," in response to what he considered to be "the most brutal attack by Spain against Venezuela" since the times when the Caribbean country fought for its independence, in reference to the decision of Congress. <h5><strong>Pedro Sánchez</strong></h5> Foreign Ministry sources insisted this week to the media that the Government's objective is "to work within the European Union to maintain a common position as until now, which allows for a negotiated political solution for the benefit of the Venezuelan people and which includes analysing whether the recognition of Edmundo González Urrutia can help in this." In the same sense, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, declared hours before the vote that "the Government of Spain, since the elections, has been clear: we have asked for the publication of the minutes, we have not recognised the victory of Nicolás Maduro and we are doing something very important: working for unity in the European Union, so that this unity of the European Union allows us to have room for mediation between now and the end of the year so that we can find a way out that conveys the democratic will expressed at the polls by the Venezuelan people." “It is pure common sense,” but the opposition maintains its strategy of “saying no to everything the Government does, no matter what, no matter where and no matter who,” he continued during a press conference in Shanghai, within the framework of his official visit to China. “If we give asylum, because we give asylum; if we don’t give asylum, because we don’t give asylum. In short, I think they are left naked in their inconsistency,” he added. Pedro Sánchez also warned that “the question we should ask ourselves is, if a person asks the Government of Spain for asylum and we say no, what would have been the reaction, in this case justified, not only of the opposition and the Spanish political system, but of the whole of Spanish society.” “Asylum is still a gesture of humanity, a civil, humanitarian commitment of Spanish society and, by extension, of its government with people who, unfortunately, are suffering persecution and repression, and that is what we have done with Edmundo González,” he added. <strong>European Parliament</strong> Next week, the European Parliament will debate and vote on a draft resolution, promoted by PNV MEP Oihane Agirregoitia, to recognise the opposition's victory in the presidential elections on 28 July. The conference of presidents agreed at its meeting yesterday to convene this debate, which will include a vote on a resolution to recognise Edmundo González as the legitimate president of Venezuela. This will be the first official statement by the European Parliament on the elections on 28 July. The draft resolution requests the Venezuelan electoral authorities to immediately publish all the minutes and results of the polling stations, as well as the preservation of all the equipment used in the electoral process. It also demands the release of all those arbitrarily detained, an end to the repression against civil society and the opposition, and the protection of opposition leaders who remain in Venezuela, such as María Corina Machado. <h5><strong>Maduro: “Venezuela is and will be independent from Spain”</strong></h5> In relation to the vote in Congress, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, declared this Tuesday that he had asked the Venezuelan vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to call her “friend” the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to show him “the Act of Independence of July 5”, so that “he knows that Venezuela is and will be irremediably free, sovereign, independent of Madrid, Spain and the entire world”- In statements before the plenary session of the Federal Government Council, Maduro said that “millions of Spaniards supported Franco and still vote for the PP, the PP trash, of the extreme right, and the ultra-trash of Vox, which is the ultra-right, which has a colonialist concept of America”. “It will be demonstrated tomorrow (yesterday) in a vote that Congress has,” he said. Madrid has been the “host of fascism in Europe and the world” since the Franco dictatorship, and, today, it is the “receptacle for all the terrorists, corrupt people and fascists in Venezuela who flee to Madrid,” added Maduro, referring to the opposition members exiled in Spain, among whom is Edmundo González himself.
