At mid-morning in the peninsula, the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, confirmed what was expected once the ultimatum to Nicolás Maduro expired at midnight on Sunday: the Spanish administration recognizes Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela. Along the following hours, Portugal, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Croatia, Malta and Bulgaria joined the recognition to Guaidó, and more recently, Irlanda. Finland had done so at the end of January. All of them complete the list of 22 out of the 28 member countries of the European Union. They signed a joint declaration to recognize Guaidó, so that “he can call free, fair and democratic presidential elections.” A similar statement Pedro Sánchez’s earlier official declaration.
“It must in the horizon to call free, democratic elections in the shortest possible time, with guarantees and without exclusions. Elections in which Venezuelans will be able decide their future with their voice and their vote, without fear, without pressure and without threats. Definitely, it is the Venezuelan people who have to exclusively decide their future ,” Sánchez’s read from his official statement. The Spanish president added that his government “has the intention to promote” a humanitarian aid program for Venezuela within the EU and the UN.
Ukraine, Macedonia, Iceland and Georgia, which do not belong to the EU, released declarations in the same vein. Italy, on the other hand, is a member state, but decided against the recognition, on the grounds of noninterference with internal policies of countries.
The European Union had not recognized the questionable May 2018 elections, in which Maduro was appointed as the winner. Parties of a diverse ideological range, social democracy, liberals, the classic right and the far right govern the 19 member states that now recognize Guaidó. This time, the EU recognition to Guaido is a consesus decision, as confirmed by Pedro Sánchez yesterday.
Nicolás Maduro had at any rate rejected the European ultimatum in a televised interview late Sunday with journalist Jordi Évole on La Sexta.
These successive European declarations take place on the same day that the Lima Group held an emergency meeting in Ottawa, Canada. Julio Borges represented the interim president, who has been banned from leaving the country by the Venezuelan Supreme Court.
Last week, the European Union left behind the possibility of a bloc-agreed pronouncement, which is a tradition according to El Confidencial. Instead, they agreed to let each country decide whether or not to recognize the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly as the chief of the Executive.
At the same time, Europe agreed to start a contact group set up with the aim of promoting a negotiation between “Madurism” and the Guaidó movement, which should lead to a favorable outcome for Venezuela country in the next 90 days. Free elections with guarantees should be included in it. The creation of this group is an action that, as ratified today by Pedro Sánchez, has been promoted by Spain since last year. The first meeting will take place on February 7th in Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, one of the participating nations along with Mexico, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Ecuador, in addition to Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Sweden, the European countries who happen to have just recognized Juan Guaidó as interim president.
Relations between Venezuela and Spain
There are no details in the Spanish government’s official statement on what this recognition will imply for the course of diplomatic relations between Spain and Venezuela in practical terms, as well as in cooperation agreements and consular services for the Venezuelan and Spanish communities. According to the National Statistics Institute of Spain, 95,474 Venezuelans live there. The Spanish consulate in Caracas registers 161,523 Spaniards in that capital alone. In general, these figures tend to underestimate people with dual nationality or those naturalized in the host country. This is why other independent organizations register higher figures.
El País explored in an article the possible consequences of Sánchez’s decision, which clears up an unprecedented scenario. “Never in contemporary times has Spain stopped recognizing a head of state who maintains control of his territory. Not even the Iraqi Saddam Hussein or the Syrian Bachar el Asad. It is one thing not to recognize a state or break off diplomatic relations, and another is to keep an embassy open in a country without recognizing those who continue to hold the springs of power in their hands”, journalist Miguel González writes.
The first scenario that the author of the article foresees is that the government of Sanchez will receive a new ambassador appointed by Guaidó, as other ten countries of America did last week. This would mean the Spanish administration wound remove the immunity to the current ambassador, Mario Isea. Maduro already called Isea for consultations at the end of January.
“The current accounts of the embassy and in general all assets and deposits of the Venezuelan state in Spain should be blocked and made available to the new president and his representative,” the journalist also explains.
It is not known if Spain will appoint a new ambassador to Caracas to replace Jesús Silva. For the time being, the Spanish Ministry of Internal Affairs sent agents from the Special Operations Group of the National Police, says the same El País article, to reinforce the security of the embassy headquarters. Delegations from Spanish ministries of Commerce and Employment, as well as Defense and Interior Attaché Offices also operate in Venezuela.
It is also up in the air how incidents affecting Spanish citizens in Venezuelan territory would be dealt with, as in the recent detention of three EFE journalist, one of them a Spanish citizen. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises Spaniards not to travel to Venezuela, “except for reasons of extreme necessity,” as shown in a statement posted on its website since January 24.
The European Union does not rule out the possibility of new sanctions against Maduro government’s officials, similar to those approved in recent months. Federica Mogherini, the head of foreign policy of the EU, said: “It is possible that the ministers will evaluate the sanctions in the next few days if we don’t see a positive evolution,” as reported by Bloomberg.
Internationalist Daniel Merchán predicted it in a conversation with Efecto Cocuyo. He believes that this could even lead to the extreme of the rupture of diplomatic relations of Maduro with individual countries.
“Venezuela is going to isolate itself even more. There will probably be more economic sanctions, freezing of accounts and assets, sanctions directed against government spokespersons who are not on the [existing] list and, at one extreme, the break of relations,” he said.
In fact, on Monday, warnings were heard from Maduro’s Foreign Office to “review bilateral relations” with the governments of the countries that support Guaidó.