The recent communiqué of the European Union (EU) on Venezuela must be viewed with a critical eye, since its central feature is ambiguity, ambivalence, with no notable shift in the position that the EU has been taking in relation to our country.
To begin with, the communiqué ignores the 6D elections, they detract from its legitimacy. It literally states: “The European Union considers that the elections did not meet international standards for a credible process and for mobilizing the Venezuelan people to participate. The lack of political pluralism and the way the elections were planned and executed, including the disqualification of opposition leaders, do not permit the EU to recognize this electoral process as credible, inclusive or transparent”. In other words, for the EU the new National Assembly is not legitimate.
In the same line of disregard for our institutions, they reiterate the need for Venezuela to have local, presidential and legislative elections based on an agreement and other conditions. The interference is still present.
Then, the communiqué makes clear its commitment to actors that “fight to return democracy to Venezuela”, denying that there is democracy in our country, and maintaining their position of support for a change of regime.
Although they include Guaidó as one of these actors and refer to the insurrected national assembly as “outgoing”, they emphasize that the 2015 parliamentary elections were the last truly democratic process to take place in Venezuela. On the one hand they call it “salient” but on the other they recognize it as legitimate. It remains to be seen if, based on this, they will once again recognize the supposed interim government, to the extent that it is based on the legality of the National Assembly that Guaidó presided over. Although it ceased to function legally yesterday, they continue to recognize it as in force.
Finally, they call for a “process of transition led by Venezuela” and say they are alert to processes of repression against members of the opposition, surely foreseeing judicial actions against Guaidó and his gang qualifying them in advance as “repression”.
For this reason, seeing the text in detail, we believe that the ambiguity of the communiqué is one more sign of the difficulty of the European Union in developing an autonomous foreign policy, independent of the designs and directives of the United States. The ambivalence can be interpreted as a position of standing on the definitions made by the US government.
Therefore, we reaffirm what President Maduro said: Venezuela must count on itself, it is on us and ourselves that we must focus, to continue defending sovereignty, peace and democracy. That is why the deepening and consolidation of a broad national unity is crucial.
INTERNATIONALIST 360° 