The European People’s Party group in the European Parliament urges the Member States of the European Union to recognise Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as the “legitimate and democratically elected president of Venezuela” and to do “everything possible” so that he can take office on January 10, 2025.
The group chaired by the German Manfred Weber also requests in a motion for a resolution on Venezuela, registered this Friday, that “the EU and its Member States request an international arrest warrant for Nicolas Maduro for crimes against humanity for all the serious human rights violations he has committed.
At the same time, he calls for specific sanctions to be applied to Maduro and his entourage, their families and all those responsible for human rights violations in the country.
The European Parliament will debate the crisis in Venezuela on Tuesday after asking the groups of the European People’s Party (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Patriots and Renew Europe to do so, they said. Efe parliamentary sources, and a resolution on the subject will be voted on Thursday.
The various political groups in the European Parliament are preparing their contributions to the debate and the resolution on which they will vote in plenary session next week on the political crisis in Venezuela, with divergences on the recognition of the opposition candidate in the last presidential elections, Edmundo González Urrutia.
In its proposal, the EPP Group recognises González Urrutia as the “legitimately and democratically” elected president of Venezuela; it also recognises María Corina Machado as the leader of the democratic forces in Venezuela, since “she was elected in the primaries of the Unitary Platform in 2023 with 92.35% of the votes”.
SO, urges “all EU Member States to recognise Edmundo González Urrutia as legitimate president” and democratically elected president of Venezuela.”
And calls on “the EU and its Member States to do everything possible to ensure that the legitimate and democratically elected president can take office on 10 January 2025, in accordance with the Venezuelan Constitution.”
Likewise, “it strongly condemns and fully rejects the electoral fraud orchestrated by the regime-controlled CNE, which refused to make public the official result through the minutes of each polling station despite repeated calls from the international community.”
In parallel, The EPP Group’s proposal fully supports the investigations of the International Criminal Court and the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on “the crimes and large-scale repression by the Venezuelan regime” and calls on the EU to support the investigations, currently envisaged under the Rome Statute, into the alleged crimes against humanity, so that those responsible are held accountable.
In this context, “calls on the EU and its Member States to request an international arrest warrant against Nicolas Maduro for crimes against humanity and for all the serious human rights violations he has committed”.
The proposal condemns “in the strongest possible terms the killings, harassment, rapes and arrests against the democratic opposition to the Venezuelan regime and people; demands the immediate and unconditional release of all persons politically and arbitrarily detainedespecially minors.”
After recalling that in May 2024 the EU lifted sanctions as a gesture of goodwill against the members of the CNE, the European People’s Party stresses that this action “has not produced any positive effect” and calls for their reinstatement.
Finally, urges regional actors to exert all possible pressure on the Maduro regime and his entourage to accept the democratic will of the Venezuelan people and to recognize González Urrutia as the legitimate and democratically elected president of Venezuela.
The EPP Group in the European Parliament is convinced that if there is no peaceful transfer of power and restoration of democracy on 10 January 2025, there will be a new migratory exodus to other countries in the region, similar to the one that has led almost 8 million Venezuelans to flee the country in recent years.
