The High Representative for Foreign Policy of the EU, Kaja Kallas, announced this Monday that she will formally propose the lifting of European sanctions to the president in charge of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, as requested by Spain.
“I will propose that we lift the sanctions on Delcy Rodríguez as interim president, we will see if there is consensus or not,” Kallas announced at the end of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels where the Spanish representative, José Manuel Albares, had brought the Venezuelan proposal, arguing that it would be a “strong signal” of support for the Venezuelan process, while at the same time it will prevent, he said upon his arrival in Brussels, Europe from being left out of the dialogue led by the United States.
At the same time, the head of Spanish diplomacy has urged Caracas to allow progress towards an “inclusive, peaceful and democratic” solution in the South American country. At the moment, the approved law is selective, it excludes the military and it is not clear whether it will benefit the opposition leader María Corina Machado.
The lifting of sanctions, like their application, requires the unanimity of the Twenty-Seven, a process that will not, in any case, be immediate. But after consulting in recent days with the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, and several capitals, Albares, who believes that the decision “should not take long” so that the signal from Europe is “clear.”
“Everyone understands that we must send a strong signal that we are going in the right direction,” Albares stressed before journalists at the beginning of the meeting with his European counterparts in the Belgian capital, where the ministers also have on their agenda Russia’s war against Ukraine, which turns four years old this Tuesday, as well as the situation in Gaza and the controversial Peace Board inaugurated last week by the US president, Donald Trump.
The head of Spanish diplomacy recalled that sanctions “are never an end in themselves”, but rather a “means of pressure to produce an end”, in this case, among others, “moving towards the release of political prisoners,
Currently, the European bloc has 69 Venezuelan individuals sanctioned, including Delcy Rodríguez. The president in charge has been on the European blacklist since June 2018, for having “undermined democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela, among other ways, through the usurpation of the powers of the National Assembly and the use of those powers to attack the opposition and prevent their participation in the political process”, in reference to the controversial elections of that year, after which the then president Nicolás Maduro, now detained in the United States, was once again declared the winner.
Rodríguez, who has since been, among others, prohibited from traveling to European territory, received special permission to do so on the occasion of the EU-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) summit, held in July 2023 in Brussels, which he attended as a representative of Venezuela.
Albares has stressed that her request is limited for the moment to the president in charge. And he recalled that the EU does not usually sanction either the president of a country or its Foreign Minister precisely so as not to close all avenues for dialogue. Since Rodríguez is now the highest authority in Venezuela, and the one who “is most directly making decisions”, such as the amnesty law, lifting the sanctions “is something that must continue,” according to the Spanish Government.
Furthermore, Albares has warned, “the EU cannot be left out” of open political dialogue. “Europe has to have a dialogue with Venezuela and with the Government of Venezuela at the level that the United States is having at the moment, and these sanctions, at this moment, hinder it.”
While Spain once again positions itself as Venezuela’s interlocutor before the Twenty-Seven, Albares has also urged Caracas to take more steps in the transition process, especially in terms of an amnesty that Spain wants to be as inclusive as possible.
“I encourage the Government of Venezuela to continue taking more steps so that the amnesty reaches its final consequences” and allows “creating the conditions so that those who have had to take the path of exile, 200,000 of them living in Spain, if they wish, can return with all the guarantees to Venezuela,” he stated. Only that will allow us to “move towards that inclusive, peaceful and democratic solution that Spain has been promoting and that we believe is the only solution for the brother people of Venezuela,” he added.
