Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, announced this Friday that the Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia has formally requested political asylum in Spain this week.
Albares appeared this Friday, at his own request and that of the Popular, VOX and Republican groups, before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress to report, among other matters, on the Government’s decision to grant asylum to Edmundo González Urrutia, on the negotiations of the agreement in relation to Gibraltar and on the current international situation in Spain.
During his appearance, the minister criticised the PP for “the partisan and political use that some make of the dramatic situation that the Venezuelan people are experiencing” and assured that Edmundo González has requested asylum in Spain by “his own personal and free” decision, after which “this Government welcomed Edmundo González as in the past it welcomed Leopoldo López and so many others for humanitarian reasons”.
“The arrival of Edmundo González to Spain is a gesture of humanity and civil commitment of Spanish society and its Government and, thanks to this humanitarian gesture, Edmundo González is today free in Spain and not detained in Venezuela,” he warned.
Albares also announced that, “today,” the Venezuelan government has authorized consular protection for the two Spaniards detained for their alleged involvement in a plot to destabilize the government of Nicolás Maduro. “Venezuela has told us by verbal note that we can exercise the appropriate consular protection,” he said. The two Spaniards, he reiterated, are “unjustly detained” and the government is going to do “all the necessary steps so that, as soon as possible, they are where they should always be, in our country, with their families.”
Middle East
Albares also announced that the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) has mobilized a first package of 1.5 million euros to assist those affected by the escalation of violence in Lebanon, through the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), and that, “this morning a first direct shipment of 1.5 tons of medicines and emergency medical material has left.”
«The war has to stop now, a ceasefire in Gaza and a truce in Lebanon are urgently needed,» warned the minister, who regretted the invasion by Israel of «an independent and sovereign country» like Lebanon. «We are seeing the highest number of deaths in the West Bank in 20 years and in Lebanon in 30 years, which is why we demand that all parties respect the lives of civilians and the most basic principles of the most elementary humanity,» he said. According to Albares, «Spain always condemns violence,» not only that of Israel, and in this regard, he recalled that the Government has condemned the recent bombings by Iran against Israel and the attacks by Hamas that triggered the current security crisis in the entire region, which is about to complete a year.
Gibraltar, Mexico and Nicaragua
Among other issues, Albares defended the progress of negotiations on the future of Gibraltar in the EU and called for a “state pact” from the parliamentary groups to move forward in this direction. “PP and Vox know perfectly well what agreement Spain has put on the table, but you do not like state pacts, you are in opposition to the State,” he said later, during his first turn to reply.
Regarding Latin America, he defended the Government’s decision not to attend the investiture of the new president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum: “The Government categorically rejected the exclusion of His Majesty the King and, for that reason, we decided that our country would not be represented. If the head of State is not invited, Spain is not invited.”
He also announced that the granting of Spanish nationality will be extended to the 135 Nicaraguan prisoners who were exiled and stripped of their citizenship at the beginning of September for, according to the ruling of the Supreme Court of Nicaragua, promoting “violence, hatred, terrorism and economic destabilization, altering peace, security and the constitutional order.”
This initiative joins the decision taken at the beginning of 2023 by the Spanish Government, when it announced the granting of citizenship to another 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners. On this occasion, Albares explained, those concessions will also be extended to the “first-degree relatives in a precarious situation” of these more than two hundred people already naturalized. “Our commitment to them is firm,” he added.
On the other hand, José Manuel Albares expressed his wish that the use of the co-official languages (Catalan, Basque and Galician) in the European Parliament becomes a reality because it is a “priority” for the Spanish Government and an “essential” element of the Spanish national identity.
Albares also took the opportunity to defend the current Spanish foreign policy. “Spain deploys a foreign policy with its own identity, a foreign policy to face the challenges of the present and the future. Based on peace, democracy, human rights,” he said. “We have achieved the greatest representation of Spanish men and women in European and international institutions in our history, appointments that speak of the quality of our representatives and of the growing weight of Spain in recent years in the concert of nations,” he added.
Post-debate
During the post-debate, the Foreign Affairs spokesman for the Popular Group, Carlos Floriano, assured that the Government of Pedro Sánchez “negotiated with the Maduro dictatorship the exit of the winner in the elections, not for humanitarian reasons, but to help the dictatorship”, following “the guidelines” of the former president of the Government and current mediator in Venezuela, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. He also denounced that Spain has lost its historical capacity for dialogue in the Middle East due to Sánchez’s decision to recognise the State of Palestine to win votes in the European elections.
For his part, Carlos Flores Juberías, from Vox, asks Albares “what measures” his Ministry has adopted to comply with the request of Congress for Edmundo González to be declared president-elect of Venezuela and, if he has not adopted them, “when he plans to adopt them”.
Likewise, Agustín Santos, from Sumar, considered it “important to maintain the Barbados Agreements” in Venezuela to “achieve a democratic and negotiated solution between the opposition and the Government” and, regarding the Middle East, he stated that “it is evident that the Government uses all diplomatic mechanisms in the Middle East”, but he wondered “if it is using all possible multilateral mechanisms” in areas such as the International Criminal Court, the arms embargo on the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu or the Association Agreement between the EU and Israel.
In his replies, Albares reminded the PP and Vox that “only two countries have recognized Edmundo González as president: Ecuador and Panama” and, therefore, he asked the Popular Group to “join the international consensus” and recalled that “Spain’s position is the common position of the 27 EU States”.
Likewise, and in relation to Edmundo González, he assured that “the door of the Spanish Embassy is always open” to anyone who requests asylum, and even more so if it is “from a sister country like Venezuela”. “The PP accuses the Government of supporting a coup d’état, just like the Maduro regime, in that they go hand in hand,” he said. With all these accusations, he warned, “they have forced Edmundo González to issue a statement (which he read in full) to deny that he had been coerced by Spain. What are they waiting for to ask for forgiveness from the foreign service?”
