Eduardo González
The Popular Parliamentary Group in Congress has called on the Government of Pedro Sánchez to ask the European Union to maintain the sanctions against the regime of Nicolás Maduro “as long as there are no reliable and verifiable guarantees of a transition of the country towards a full democracy” and in response to the disqualification of opposition candidate María Corina Machado.
In a Non-Law Proposal presented on February 2 for debate in the Foreign Affairs Commission, the PP denounces that Venezuela suffers “a deep political, economic and social crisis, which has worsened in recent years due to the actions of the Nicolás Maduro’s regime (…), a tyranny that has prevented the holding of free and democratic elections, has ignored electoral results favorable to the opposition, has repeatedly violated human rights and has exercised violence against political dissidence.”
According to the Popular Group, the Maduro regime “has been determined to hinder the holding of true, free, fair, open and competitive elections.” An example of this, he continues, is the disqualification of María Corina Machado, of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), “elected by Venezuelans as a unitary opposition candidate for the 2024 presidential elections with 93% of the more than 2.5 millions of votes cast in the primary elections held on October 22.”
The decision of the Supreme Court of Venezuela to reject the protection that the opposition candidate had presented after her disqualification from running in elections, Grupo Popular warns, “constitutes the umpteenth violation of the fundamental electoral rules required for any democracy.” “The disqualification of Machado is proof of the bad faith of the regime in compliance with the so-called ‘Barbados Agreements’, through which the United States agreed to reconsider the sanctions imposed on the Chavista regime in exchange for a firm commitment to Maduro to make a free and guaranteed electoral process possible,” he adds.
For this reason, the Non-Law Proposition urges the Government of Pedro Sánchez to “reject the decisions of various Venezuelan courts, plagued by procedural defects, which are intended to politically disqualify several citizens and very specifically María Corina Machado, candidate of the opposition elected in primaries,” and to “support their right to compete in the 2024 presidential elections.”
Likewise, it asks the Executive to demand “the holding of free, fair and competitive elections in Venezuela, as stipulated by the laws and the Constitution of said country”, and with the presence of “electoral observation missions by different international organizations.”
EU sanctions
The PP also urges the Government to “request the European Union to maintain the sanctions imposed on the Nicolás Maduro regime as long as there are no reliable and verifiable guarantees of a transition of the country towards a full democracy”, to “demand that everyone be allowed Venezuelan citizens, including those who reside abroad, exercise their right to vote” and to “recognize the humanitarian emergency situation that Venezuela is experiencing and the condition of Venezuelan exiles in Spain as victims of political persecution.
In mid-October, the United States announced the six-month lifting of sanctions on Venezuelan oil and gas after the Maduro Government and the Democratic Unitary Platform reached an agreement in Barbados to hold presidential elections in the second half of 2024 and with the presence of international observers.
A month later, the EU Foreign Affairs Council renewed the sanctions against Venezuela for a period of six months, instead of one year, after Spain recommended the review of these measures in response to the Barbados Agreement. These restrictive measures include an embargo on weapons and equipment for internal repression, as well as a travel ban and asset freeze of 54 people included on the list.
Persecutions, asylum and international protection
The PP motion also demands that the Government condemn “the systematic policy of criminalization, by the Nicolás Maduro regime, against Venezuelan citizens who have decided to exercise their civil and political rights within the framework of the Venezuelan Constitution” and that Demand that Maduro “immediately stop the harassment of opposition party leaders, human rights activists, union members, journalists and other citizens exercising their civil and political rights.”
Additionally, it urges the Executive to provide these people with “the possibility of obtaining asylum in Spain, if they request it,” and to facilitate “the processing of requests for international protection made by Venezuelan citizens fleeing political oppression and exclusion.” economic and social.”
