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BUCHAREST – At the conclusion of a meeting in Bucharest to debate the Venezuelan issue, the chief diplomat of the European Union, Federica Mogherini, said that the European Union create a contact group to deal with the crisis in Venezuela. the goal of leading to free and democratic elections in the country.
In a joint statement at the end of the meeting of the European Foreign Ministers, he also announced that the international contact group, as it was called, would be composed of European countries, countries Latin America and the EU.
If there is no progress, the group will be closed in 90 days. She said the European bloc was ready to apply more economic sanctions to Venezuela if there was no progress.
– The goal, I want to emphasize, is clearly not to open a formal mediation, not to open a formal dialogue, but to support a political dynamic that the group can then follow and consolidate. He said. – The group will help build confidence and create the conditions necessary for Venezuelans to determine their own future by holding new elections with all the guarantees of a free and fair electoral process, supervised by independent observers.
At the press conference, Mogherini announced that, unlike the United States, Brazil and 14 other countries of the Americas, the 28-nation bloc did not recognize Juan Guaidó as Acting President of the South American country. The opposition leader declared himself "responsible" last week, with the support of the National Assembly.
Mogherini argued that recognition was not a European prerogative and that it was up to each Member State to do so. Recognition would require a consensual stance on the subject, and non-recognition suggests that there is a division on the subject.
The EU had the intention of creating a contact group with Venezuela since October, which has never seen the light of day. The country bloc wanted to launch the current initiative in February but, due to the worsening of the crisis, decided to move it forward.
According to Mogherini, the deadline is to prevent Maduro from using the group "to save time". The Europeans, she added, seek to "build trust and create the conditions for a credible process" leading to elections.
Mogherini said that the EU, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the European side and that Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Bolivia would join the group. She also said that she was waiting for the confirmation of "some" Latin American countries, which she hopes to confirm in the coming days.
She hoped that the next meeting could be held in the first week, in Latin America, at the ministerial level. Mr Mogherini also said that the EU was willing to increase its humanitarian aid to Venezuela and its neighbors.
In an earlier decision, the European Parliament
adopted a resolution
in Brussels, which recognizes Guaidó as interim president. The decision received 439 votes in favor, 104 against and 88 abstentions. The text is non-binding, that is to say that the 28 Member States of the European Union are not obliged to follow it and is symbolic, as an instrument of pressure on Maduro.
Thursday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ernesto Araújo,
criticizes
to the countries that speak in the dialogue and contact group as a solution to the Venezuelan crisis, addressing indirectly to Uruguay and Mexico and to the Europeans. According to Araújo, by betting on a negotiated solution between President Nicolás Maduro and Guaidó, these "nonconformist" countries eventually let the Venezuelan dictatorship survive.
The conservative language of the EU can be attributed to the resistance of both sides to a negotiation. Maduro and his ministers said in recent days that they were accepting dialogue, but Maduro himself has ruled out the possibility of holding elections. Guaidó reaffirmed Thursday that "never again", the opposition will participate in a "false dialogue" with the government, in reference to the fruitless negotiations conducted last year in the Dominican Republic.
In any case, the elections would be a challenge for both parties. Maduro's popularity is 20% and 78% want him to leave power, according to a survey conducted last week in five Venezuelan cities by the Idea Big Data Institute. Already, the opposition, although currently reunited by Guaidó's internal management, has historical difficulties to unify for the settlement of electoral disputes.
The possibility of dialogue was also rejected by the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, one of the most critical of the Maduro regime.
– The offer of mediation is ridiculous because it is not an issue to be negotiated between the two parties. It is about re-democratizing the country – he said. – The negotiation of the exit of the usurpation is the negotiation to be conducted.
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