<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Government has already granted political asylum to the Venezuelan opposition leader and candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, who will be notified “in the next few days”, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, on Friday.</strong></h4> The minister made this announcement to the press in the corridors of the Senate, before appearing before the Committee on Ibero-American Affairs of the Upper House and after having “a very cordial working breakfast” with González. The asylum status, requested by the Venezuelan leader himself upon his arrival in Spain on September 8, after being transferred from Caracas by a Spanish Air Force plane, “has already been granted and he will be notified in the next few days”, announced Albares. The minister did not specify whether the breakfast dealt with Edmundo González's desire to return to his country to be sworn in as president on January 10, and merely clarified that he would not reveal the "precise" content of their conversation and that the Venezuelan leader "has complete freedom of movement to be able to meet with whomever he wishes." This is the second meeting between Albares and González Urrutia, the opposition candidate in the presidential elections of July 28 and who has been declared "president-elect of Venezuela" by both chambers of the Spanish Parliament, although not by the government. The electoral records published by the opposition give González Urrutia the victory in the elections, but the National Electoral Council (CNE) officially proclaimed the victory of President Nicolás Maduro During the interview, Albares said, both spoke about González's personal situation and the general situation in Venezuela and the minister informed him about the conclusions of the last European Council, held this Thursday in Brussels and in which the leaders of the 27 member States unanimously demanded "a peaceful, democratic, inclusive transition, respect for human rights and the release of all political prisoners." Through his account on the social network X, the Venezuelan leader reported on his meeting with Albares, "who has ratified the position of the Spanish State reflected in the document of the European Council where the organization asks for the release of all political prisoners and demands that Venezuela maintain its commitments under international law." “The document states that ‘the European Union will mobilize all the tools at its disposal to support democracy and a peaceful and inclusive transition in Venezuela,’ González Urrutia added. The granting of asylum to Edmundo González was also announced by Albares before the Ibero-American Affairs Commission, where he assured that “no one has done as much” as the Spanish Government, together with its “partners and allies in the world, so that the democratic will of the Venezuelans, expressed at the polls on July 28, triumphs.” “This Government will continue to use diplomacy, a sense of state, and also common sense, to defend democracy and human rights in Venezuela” and to defend Spanish interests and the companies present in this country and “will continue to promote and support all efforts aimed at encouraging dialogue and negotiation in the country, both by the European Union and any regional initiative that is proposed,” said the Foreign Minister, who criticized “the interested partisan noise and the disinformation campaigns of a right and far right that in our country insist on denying the obvious and behave as if they were the faction of a Venezuelan party.”
