Venezuela cancels invitation to the EU to send an electoral observation mission

The National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela canceled the invitation to the European Union (EU) to send an observation mission for the presidential elections on July 28, due to the ratification of sanctions by the community bloc against members of the Government and the ruling party, the president of the electoral body, Elvis Amoroso, reported this Tuesday, May 28, 2024.

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“The electoral power revokes and nullifies the invitation it extended to the EU to participate through an oversight mission“said Amoroso, two months before the elections and shortly after the president of the Venezuelan Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, requested said annulment.

The CNE made this decision “based“in the exercise of his “sovereignty“and taking into account the”incalculable property damage that has been caused to the people (due to the sanctions), affecting the health of children and the elderly“said the president of the entity, despite the fact that the measures applied by the EU are strictly personal, so they do not affect state companies or Venezuelan public goods that harm citizens.

However, he insisted that the sanctions prevent “access to medicine and food, they also affect education, sports, the economy, restricting entrepreneurs from the acquisition of raw materials and inputs that are necessary and that the national industry needsalso limiting the exercise and principle of economic freedom and its contribution to the development of the nation.”

The sanctions – Amoroso reiterated – generated “the loss of 125,000 million dollars that, without a doubt, would be destined for social investment“, a statement that, in no case, implicates the EU, which did not apply economic measures to the country, but to individuals, including the president of the CNE himself, who recently rejected the lifting of its restrictions.

“From the CNE we demand that the EU proceed with the total lifting of the unilateral coercive and genocidal sanctions imposed on our people and cease its hostile position against Venezuela,” he insisted.

In his opinion, it would be “immoral“allow the participation of the EU” knowing its neocolonialist and interventionist practices against Venezuela, despite the fact that the country did accept an observation mission of the 27 in the 2021 regional elections, when the same measures existed.

The decision – he said – “will be sent immediately to the EU so that they understand that they are not welcome people to come to this country while the genocidal sanctions are maintained.”

The European Union regretted the decision of the National Electoral Council of Venezuela. The community bloc, in a statement published in X and shared by the delegation of the 27 in the South American country, noted that “The Venezuelan people should be able to elect their president in credible, transparent and competitive elections, supported by international observation, including that of the European Union, which has a long and distinguished record of independent and impartial observation.“.

The EU called on the CNE to reconsider this decision, “in accordance with the Barbados Agreement, signed by the Venezuelan authorities and opposition parties, which specifically established“that an observation mission from the community bloc would be invited to the Caribbean nation.

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