The High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, indicated this Thursday, September 17, that there was no way the EU would send a team of observers to the controversial elections the Nicolas Maduro regime is preparing, unless “important changes” are made and the deadline pushed back.
Maduro was quick to reject delaying the election, saying Thursday night “what the EU wants is impossible.”
On Thursday, the United Nations accused Maduro of egregious against humanity, including extrajudicial executions, torture, rape, and incarceration of political opponents.
Shortly after the UN’s accusations were public, Borrell rejected sending a mission to Venezuela under the present terms. “Only important changes in the conditions and time frame could allow the deployment of an EU electoral observation mission,” Borrell stated through his account in the social network Twitter.
The head of EU diplomacy made the statement at the end of a meeting of the International Contact Group sponsored by the EU to try to create the conditions in Venezuela to hold free and fair elections.
Borrell said the group, which met at the ministerial level by videoconference and includes both European and Latin American countries, reiterated its “strong support” for “continuing to work for a negotiated political solution to the Venezuelan crisis.”
Maduro reiterated that there is nothing to negotiate, asking the EU instead to “change its mentality” and allow him to organize a vote while there are thousands of suspected extrajudicial executions pending investigation, hundreds of political prisoners in Venezuelan jails, and harsh repression against the opposition-controlled National Assembly legislative.To this end, he assured that “the holding of free and fair elections is key.”
Last Saturday, a community spokeswoman indicated that there is not enough time to send an electoral observation mission to Venezuela if the elections are held on December 6, since the preparation of this type of mission requires at least six months and the current deadline is “too short,” she said.
Last week, the EU had said that “minimum conditions” are not being met and demanded of the regime a “precise response (…) to the minimum requirements requested by the opposition” regarding the holding of the vote. The parliamentary elections have generated a broad rejection in numerous sectors of the Venezuelan opposition due to the lack of guarantees, which has led them to call these elections fraud.
