I miss the time when there were serious newspapers in which a headline was worth every inch of its publication. Their seriousness and veracity was backed by their editor and the owner of the newspaper, extraordinarily serious and honest men beyond any doubt. In Venezuela it was enough to buy El Universal and El Nacional to be fully documented with the best opinions and certified news of what was really happening in Venezuela and the world.
The same was true in other parts of the world. The New York Times, the Washington Post and others of the same stature were the obligatory reference if you wanted to know what was going on in the United States. The same happened in Europe and Latin America with the flagship press of each country. In Venezuela, for me it was a must to read the daily opinion page of El Nacional. It was a superb delight the names that appeared there. There was criteria, solidity and culture at the same time. Unfortunately, as you all know, that reality changed drastically with the irruption of technology and the gradual disappearance of newspapers as we knew them, to give way to raw and direct information coming from social networks.
The new generations will never know how important the golden age of the serious press was for the lives of so many people around the world. The speed of the news became more important than its authenticity, and the reality of things was distorted. Now nobody knows what is true and what is not, because the responsibility for the veracity of what is read has been transferred to the receiver of what is published, to the point that verifiers began to appear who cannot keep up with everything that appears because it is humanly impossible. The ocean of information is incredibly large and changes every second. And this has serious consequences. And one of them is the manipulation of information. Hence, if you receive something you have the obligation to dig into that ocean and somehow get the truth out. And since I am interested in Venezuela and everything that is said about it, I take that task very seriously.
When half the digital press in the world indicates in big headlines such as, "EU downgrades Juan Guaidó to mere "privileged interlocutor"." (ElMundo.es, https://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2021/01/25/600f0c8b21efa0fc368b465a.html) or "Juan Guaidó downgraded to "privileged interlocutor" status for the European Union" (Mercopress.com, https://es.mercopress.com/2021/01/26/juan-guaido-baja-a-condicion-de-interlocutor-privilegiado-para-union-europea), or "Venezuela. EU foreign ministers downgrade Juan Guaidó from president to mere "privileged interlocutor." (Hispanidad.com, https://www.hispanidad.com/confidencial/venezuela-ministros-exteriores-ue-rebajan-juan-guaido-simple-interlocutor-privilegiado_12023788_102.html), all this without counting the regime-controlled digital press in Venezuela (El Universal, Ultimas Noticias which I don't want to reference here) and other interested in seeing the President-in-Charge kneeling, the careless reader -which is the majority- automatically come to the conclusion that this is true, that Guaidó was "demoted" when that is NOT TRUE. Let's see.
First, the "European Union is governed by an internal system of representative democracy. It has seven institutions: the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Court of Auditors and the European Central Bank." (ver https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/es/section/187/las-instituciones-y-los-organos-de-la-union-europea). In other words, there is no such thing as a unified entity making a decision akin to "downgrading" anyone's status. Of those seven institutions that make up what we know as the European Union, only the European Parliament and now the European Council (also known as the Consilium) have established clear positions on the situation in Venezuela.
On January 21, 2009, the European Parliament approved a Resolution entitled "The latest developments in the National Assembly of Venezuela" (see Resolution No. 2021/2508(RSP), in https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0019_EN.html) whose first agreement was as follows:
“1. Reiterates that until truly free, credible, inclusive, transparent and fully democratic elections are held in Venezuela, it will continue to consider the National Assembly elected in December 2015, its president Juan Guaidó, and its Delegated Commission also led by Juan Guaidó, which were the last free expression of Venezuelans in an electoral process, as the single legitimate democratic representative political body in Venezuela; calls on the Council and the Member States to unequivocally recognise the constitutional continuation of the legitimate National Assembly of Venezuela elected in 2015 and the legitimate interim President of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó”. (emphasis ours)
In other words, the European Parliament, an institution of the European Union, CONTINUES TO RECOGNIZE THE ASSEMBLY OF DECEMBER 2015 AND JUAN GUAIDÓ AS THE LEGITIMATE INTERIM PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA. Of course, being one of the institutions and not fully representing the European Union in its decisions, they ask the Council and the Member States to also recognize (because they in that Resolution already do so) the constitutional continuity of the National Assembly and Guaidó as the legitimate interim President of Venezuela.
This Resolution of the European Parliament of January 21 was notified "urbi et orbi" to the entire European and Latin American political world and I have not seen even the first reference of that on social networks by the same people who say that Juan Guaidó was " degraded" by the European Council: “15. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the legitimate interim President of the Republic and National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Juan Guaidó, the governments and parliaments of the Lima Group countries, the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States and the Secretary-General of the United Nations”.
And what did the European Council do? Four days later, on January 25, the Consilium, which defines the orientations and policies of the European Union, adopts what they call a Conclusion, which are the decisions taken at each of the meetings of the European Council. These Conclusions “…are used to identify specific issues of concern for the EU and outline particular actions to take or goals to reach. European Council conclusions can also set a deadline for reaching agreement on a particular item or for the presentation of legislative proposal. In this way, the European Council is able to influence and guide the EU's policy agenda” (see European Council Conclusions, in https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/european-council/conclusions/).
The specific conclusions adopted by the European Council for the Venezuelan case were expressed in document No. ST 5299 2021 dated January 25, 2021. (see Council conclusions on Venezuela (25 January 2021), in https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/48053/st05582-en21.pdf). In this 8-point document, it states, among other conclusions, the following in point No. 3:
“3.The EU reiterates its support to all those working towards a democratic future for Venezuela. The EU repeats its calls for the guarantee of all political and civil rights, for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners and for the freedom and safety of all political opponents, in particular representatives of the opposition parties elected to the National Assembly of 2015, and especially Juan Guaidó, as well as other representatives of the democratic opposition. The EU considers them to be important actors and privileged interlocutors and encourages the democratic opposition to take a unified stance with a view to an inclusive process of dialogue and negotiation”. (emphasis ours)
Does it say there any word where it is said or understood that Juan Guaidó's status as President-in-Charge is "degraded" or that the Consilium reconsiders its position in relation to his Presidency-in-Charge? I believe rather that it was the opposite. While it is true that that document does not address the request of the European Parliament set forth in point No. 1 of its Resolution, to go so far as to express what is said in those digital media headlines is little less than a distortion to reality. The Heads of State that make up the 27 countries of the European Union did not fix in those Conclusions a position on the constitutional continuity of the National Assembly or the President-in-Charge. It seems very clear that it was too early to consider the request for such Resolution or they were simply prudent to wait for the 27 States to decide each one on such request and then address it in a subsequent Conclusion.
In addition to considering the permanent position of the European Council to insist on negotiations and "urgently establish a dialogue" (Point No. 4), the Consilium says something that I found extremely important and that went unnoticed by the mass media: "For this negotiation process to be successful, it must be inclusive, involving representatives of the authorities and of the democratic opposition, as well as from civil society organisations". And this is something very novel. It is giving civil society a seat at the dialogue table. If this is so, then the European Council will have to accept and take into account the opinion of 6.4 million Venezuelans who expressed from December 7 to 12, 2020 that the regime must leave power before making any other election. And that is the only dialogue we want. If the politicians of the official opposition insist on regional elections or any other kind of elections without that prior condition as we decided in the Popular Consultation, there will never be any seriousness in any approach with the International Community, and Maduro and his criminals will remain in power. Well now there is a mandate to be fulfilled by the Venezuelan people and this must be officially known by all the countries of the world.
From this tribune I will continue to insist: the Government in Charge of Juan Guaidó MUST officially inform all the countries of the world, and defend before all international instances the result of the Popular Consultation of December 2020. The European Parliament and European Council must be officially informed, as well as the rest of the countries of the continent through our representation in the OAS. Not to do so because they have an ambiguous position of electoral cohabitation with the regime, harms Venezuelans and does immense damage to the freedom of Venezuela. If Juan Guaidó continues in this position, he will never become even the "privileged interlocutor" of any process of dialogue and negotiation, as the European Council says in its Conclusions. By ignoring the people who expressed themselves in December, the time will come when he will not even have the privilege of being the interlocutor of Venezuelans....
Caracas, January 29, 2021
Blog: http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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