The European Union must do everything possible to allow Venezuela’s legitimate and democratically elected President Edmundo González Urrutia to take office on January 10, 2025.
In a resolution adopted on Thursday with 309 votes in favour, 201 against and 12 abstentions, the Parliament “strongly condemns and totally rejects the electoral fraud organised by the regime-controlled National Electoral Council, which refused to make public the official results.” MEPs recognise Edmundo González Urrutia as the country’s legitimate and democratically elected president and María Corina Machado as the leader of the democratic forces in Venezuela. They also strongly condemn the Venezuelan Government’s issuance of an arrest warrant against Mr. González.
The MEPs emphasise that despite repeated calls by the international community, the Venezuelan regime has not respected the 2023 Barbados Agreement between the Maduro government and the opposition regarding presidential elections, making it impossible to hold free and fair elections.
MEPs note that the reports of the international election observation missions clearly indicate that the Venezuelan presidential election of July 28, 2024 did not meet international standards of electoral integrity. They also condemn in the strongest terms the killings, harassment, violations and arrests committed against the democratic opposition, the Venezuelan people and civil society, calling for an end to systematic human rights violations.
Parliament calls on the EU to reinstate sanctions against members of the National Electoral Council. It calls for the sanctions regime to be extended and the scope of sanctions to be broadened to apply targeted sanctions under the EU’s Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime against Nicolás Maduro and his inner circle.
MEPs welcome the role played by the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico and call on regional players and the international community to put maximum pressure on the Maduro regime and its entourage to recognise the democratic will of the Venezuelan people by recognising Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate and democratically elected president. If this does not happen, parliament warns that a renewed migratory flow to other countries in the region will follow, similar to the one that has forced nearly eight million Venezuelans to flee the country in recent years.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab has requested an arrest warrant for Argentine President Javier Milei, Venezuelan TV channel VTV reported. The warrant is related to the US seizure of the Emtrasur aircraft. Venezuelan authorities are treating what happened as theft.
Tarek William Saab has assigned two special prosecutors to execute the warrants. They will also have to execute arrest warrants for the secretary general of the Argentine presidential office and his sister Karina Milei, as well as Security Minister Patricia Bulprich. All of them are accused by the Venezuelan attorney general’s office of theft, money laundering and disabling an aircraft.
In June 2022, an aircraft belonging to Venezuela’s Empresa de Transporte de Aerocargo del Sur (Emtrasur) Boeing 747 Dreamliner was arrested at Buenos Aires airport at the request of the US. Earlier it belonged to the Iranian company Mahan Air. In January 2024, the aircraft was transferred to the American side. The Iranian and Venezuelan companies are under US sanctions. The US Department of Justice believes that the aircraft was purchased by Emtrasur in circumvention of the restrictions.
