Spain will ask the European Union (EU) to lift sanctions on . The announcement was made this Friday by the Minister of Foreign Affairs José Manuel Albares after . As he has defended, the EU has to send “a sign that it is heading in the right direction in this new stage.” With this premise, he has insisted that sanctions “are never an end.” “They are a means for this broad peaceful and democratic dialogue to take place in Venezuela. If steps are being taken towards this, the EU has to take them too,” he stressed, while urging the president to “create the conditions” so that Venezuelans who left the country can return.
The Government’s announcement comes after last January, Albares stated that if the new Venezuelan authorities continued taking steps towards a democratic transition, Spain would ask the EU to reconsider the sanctions imposed on the Chavista regime.
This Friday, Albares made public the Executive’s intention in Barcelona, just before presenting the Spanish strategy for Asia and the Pacific 2026-29 to the Asian ambassadors in Spain. Although the Foreign Minister has only indicated that he will “formally” ask to remove the president in charge of Venezuela from the sanctions list, he is expected to do so next Monday during the Foreign Affairs Council (CAE), in which the Foreign Ministers of the Twenty-Seven will try to agree on a new package of sanctions against Russia and will address the situation in the Middle East, among other issues.
In a preparatory meeting held between ambassadors of this CAE, Spain requested to include a point of the day on Venezuela, as European sources have informed Europa Press. Until now, however, no further details had been known. After his request is accepted, the minister will be able to explain the situation in Caracas to his counterparts and will be able to justify why it would be necessary to reverse the sanctions against Rodríguez, although having an item on the agenda does not necessarily imply that there will be a debate or vote on it among the member states.
When announcing the proposal to lift the sanctions on Rodríguez, Albares recalled that the EU did not sanction the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, because “normally” when the 27 establish individual sanctions “they always” leave out presidents and foreign ministers, “precisely to keep the channel of dialogue open.”
The minister’s words take place after the National Assembly of Venezuela for political prisoners convicted in 13 moments of political and social upheaval that occurred between 1999 and 2026,
Albares has described the step taken by the Venezuelan Assembly as “good news.” Along these same lines, he highlighted the fact that the amnesty was approved unanimously – with the votes of the Venezuelan opposition – and he wanted the text to be as broad as possible and to allow “political prisoners to take to the streets.”
“We encourage the acting president Delcy Rodríguez to continue taking steps in that direction, to create the conditions so that those people who are currently outside Venezuela, 200,000 of them living here in Spain, those who want can return to Venezuela,” claimed the Foreign Minister.
