Corina Machado says no meeting with Sánchez or Albares is planned in Madrid

Eduardo González Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado stated this Wednesday that no meeting is planned with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez or Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares during her upcoming trip to Spain, which will take place between April 18 and 20. "At certain times, meetings are appropriate, and at other times they are not, and therefore, at this time, that meeting is not planned," Machado declared during an interview on the program 'Herrera en COPE'. Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will, however, meet with the leader of the People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and with the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. In fact, Ayuso will present the Gold Medal of the Community of Madrid to Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado this coming Saturday, April 18, “in recognition of her work in favor of freedom and human rights in Venezuela,” and the International Medal to fellow opposition leader and “president-elect of this country,” Edmundo González Urrutia, according to a statement from the regional government. The Gold Medal has also been awarded in recent years to the presidents of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky (2022); Ecuador, Daniel Noboa (2023); and Argentina, Javier Milei (2024). Separately, sources in the Senate have confirmed to the EFE news agency that Corina Machado will visit the Upper House and be received by its president, Pedro Rollán, on Monday, April 20. For his part, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, also confirmed to the press that there will be an official reception at City Hall to pay tribute to her and recognize all her achievements. Machado will arrive in Spain after meeting in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and in The Hague with Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten. Before her return, Machado will meet with the Venezuelan diaspora in Madrid on Saturday the 18th at 6:00 p.m. in the Puerta del Sol. In the same interview with COPE radio, Corina Machado also referred to the “shady dealings” of former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro. She stated that there are those who “are terrified of the truth” because they fear “the end of privileges and the end of impunity.” According to the opposition leader, “in Venezuela the truth will triumph, justice will prevail, freedom will prevail, and history will be relentless,” something that will happen “soon” and will have consequences “in Venezuela, in Spain, and I dare say in the rest of the world.” The Government would have “no problem” receiving her On April 8, José Manuel Albares declared that Machado is “perfectly free to come to Spain and, of course, if she requests a meeting—which, as of now, I have no knowledge of her having requested with me or at any other level—there is no objection to receiving her.” “I don’t control the Prime Minister’s schedule, but I’m sure that if she were to request it, the Prime Minister wouldn’t have any problem either,” he stated on the program ‘Las Mañanas’ on Radio Nacional de España. “I have spoken with her on several occasions,” he affirmed. “Unlike other political parties in Spain, we don’t have our candidate in Caracas. What we want is for the people of Venezuela, in a free, democratic, peaceful, and genuinely Venezuelan manner, to decide who their president will be,” he added. For her part, the State Secretary for Ibero-America and the Caribbean and Spanish in the World, Susana Sumelzo, stated this Wednesday, during an appearance before the Senate's Committee on Ibero-American Affairs, that the Government, "as soon as it learned of Ms. Machado's trip to Madrid," made itself "available to her team" to meet with her. "Minister Albares also announced the Government's, the Minister's, and even the President's availability to meet with Ms. Machado during her stay in Spain, and this same message was also conveyed to Ms. Machado's team, with whom, incidentally, we maintain regular contact as is perfectly normal, as we do with all political actors in Venezuela," Sumelzo continued, in response to Senator Íñigo Fernández of the People's Party. "There is no indication, at the moment, of Ms. Machado's desire to request a meeting with any representative of the Government," she asserted. "Rather, according to what we have read in the press, it seems the opposite," she added. On October 10, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the awarding of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, leader of the democratic movement in Venezuela, for “her tireless work in promoting the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” The only reaction from the Spanish government came from the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, who recalled that Spain “worked intensively” to secure Corina Machado’s release “during her time in prison.” A week later, the People’s Parliamentary Group demanded that the government express “its satisfaction” with the awarding of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, “a symbol of the defense of freedom, human rights, and democracy in Venezuela,” and denounced the Executive’s “shameful silence” on the matter, which “has a face and a name: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.”

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