The executive vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodrigueznow has free rein to enter Spain – as it did illegally when invited by the Sánchez Government in 2020 – or to fly over its territory. The latter was what he did on the night of Monday to Tuesday, when the Airbus A346 of Maduro’s number 2 traveled through Spanish airspace heading to Caracas, after the tour that led the Chavista leader to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Istanbul. Delcy Rodriguez You no longer have sanctions that prevent you from entering European soil: the European Commission has eliminated them “on the proposal” of Josep BorrellHigh Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
If Delcy Rodríguez arrived tomorrow at the Barajas executive terminal to meet with a minister of the Government of Pedro Sanchezhe would not find any legal impediment to setting foot on Spanish soil – in 2020 he had to do it furtively. Nor did he have the opportunity to enter with his brother, the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly. Jorge Rodriguezat the residence of the Spanish ambassador in Caracas to pressure and coerce the elected president Edmundo González so that he chose to accept “the offer” of the Spanish Government to leave the country.
The lifting of sanctions against Delcy Rodríguez has gone practically unnoticed since the European Commission decided, last May, to modify the “decision (CFSP) 2017/2074 regarding restrictive measures taking into account the situation in Venezuela” – the script of the sanctions on the Maduro regime by the European Union.
In an attempt to soften these restrictions in order to alleviate the pressure on the Chavista regime with elections in sight, the European Commission, “given the proposal of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy», a position still held by the socialist Josep Borrell, decided that Delcy Rodríguez should be removed from the list of people who are prohibited from entering EU soil. A list that included Maduro’s number 2 since 2018. His presence there was what caused the controversy of his illegal entry into Barajas four years ago.
The new status of pleasant person of Delcy in the Union has already been noted this week. On Tuesday, at dawn, the official plane with Maduro’s vice president on board flew over the Iberian Peninsula from east to west and left Portugal to the Atlantic, heading to Venezuela. It came from Türkiye, and on its route it also flew over other European countries such as Greece either Italynow totally free of restrictions.
The woman to whom Maduro commissioned the operation to pressure Edmundo González to request political asylum in Madrid is no longer on that list, where other leaders of Chavismo do appear, such as Attorney General Tarek William Saab Halabi. The man who put the elected president of Venezuela in search and capture. Socorro Elizabeth Hernández, the head of the National Electoral Council responsible for rigging the 2016 elections, also continues to serve there.
Zapatero’s role
The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, met last Monday with the elected president of Venezuela, Edmundo González Urrutiato whom he has thanked “his fight and his heroism against the tyranny” that he leads Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. He has also conveyed to him the “disturbing role” of the former president of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as “one more gear of Maduro.” Abascal and González Urrutia met in the Congress of Deputies, where the Venezuelan president was recognized as the winner of the presidential elections held in his country on July 28. It was an initiative promoted by the PP that Vox supported.
«A pleasure to receive in Congress the elected president of Venezuela to whom we convey, as a representative of millions of Venezuelans, our recognition to the people of Venezuela, to their struggle and his heroism against Maduro’s tyranny», Santiago Abascal said in a message posted on social networks after meeting with Edmundo González. “We hope to see him soon back (in Venezuela) presiding over his own nation,” said the Vox leader in statements to the media. Edmundo González has been accompanied by the former mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezmathe president of Foro Madrid, Eduardo Cader; and the spokesperson and project coordinator of Foro Madrid, Edmaly Maucó.
Among the topics addressed in this meeting, Abascal has mentioned Zapatero for his “disturbing role as another mechanism for Maduro” and as “member of the Puebla Group”an organization “supported by Hezbollah, Hamas and regimes like Iran and Cuba” and that represent “the worst of humanity.”
«We have conveyed our concern about the disturbing role of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as one more gear of the regime of Maduro, as a member of the Puebla Group. And when we say as a member of the Puebla Group, we say of an organization that is supported by Iran, by regimes like Cuba’s, that is, that represents the worst of humanity at this time,” the Vox leader has argued.
