On the situation in Venezuela

–having regard to the findings of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2019,

–having regard to the interim report of the UN Panel of Experts on the Venezuelan presidential election of 28 July 2024, published on 9 August 2024,

–having regard to the Organization of American States resolution of 16 August 2024 on the situation in Venezuela,

–having regard to the final report of the EU Election Observation Mission to Venezuela of 22 February 2022 entitled ‘Regional and municipal elections 21 November 2021’ and to the statement by the President of the Electoral Observation Delegation of the European Parliament of 23 November 2021 on the regional and local elections in Venezuela in 2021,

–having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.whereas on 28 July 2024, a presidential election was held in Venezuela to choose a president for a six-year term beginning on 10 January 2025; whereas the electoral process did not meet international standards of electoral integrity at any of its stages, and violated numerous provisions of Venezuelan national laws; whereas the election took place in an environment of restricted freedoms for political actors, civil society organisations and the media;

B.whereas in the Barbados Agreement of October 2023, the parties made important commitments to ease dialogue between the Venezuelan Government and the opposition and to promote negotiations with the aim of holding free and fair elections and ensuring the welfare of the Venezuelan people; whereas these included a commitment to recognise and respect the right of each political actor to choose their candidate for the presidential election freely and in accordance with their internal mechanisms;

C.whereas in October 2023, the opposition candidate María Corina Machado won the presidential primary for the Unitary Platform with 92.35 % of the votes; whereas on 26 January 2024, Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice upheld the arbitrary ban that prevents presidential candidate María Corina Machado from holding office and registering her candidacy for the presidential election; whereas the Maduro regime has disqualified several other opposition politicians over the years to prevent political change;

D.whereas on 19 April 2024, the Unitary Platform announced that Edmundo González would be their candidate, and on 26 March 2024, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) confirmed that González was registered as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election;

E.whereas on 13 May 2024, the EU decided to extend until 10 January 2025 the EU sanctions targeting Venezuelan personalities and entities supporting Nicolás Maduro’s regime;

F.whereas on 28 May 2024, the CNE revoked its invitation to the EU to send election observers to the July 2024 presidential election;

G.whereas before, during and since the election, the regime has tirelessly persecuted, abducted, arrested and imprisoned opposition activists and the campaign team of opposition leader María Corina Machado and presidential candidate Edmundo González, criminalising the work of lawyers, human rights defenders and civil society actors;

H.whereas since 20 March 2024, six close collaborators of Vente Venezuela have sought refuge in the Argentinian embassy in Caracas, where they continue to face increasing pressure and harassment by the Venezuelan security forces;

I.whereas the election of 28 July 2024 took place in a largely peaceful environment and was logistically well organised; whereas there were nevertheless reports of voters being denied access to polling stations, of delays and difficulties with registration, and of restrictions on access to many polling stations for domestic observers and opposition party witnesses; whereas major irregularities were revealed on election night and the transmission of official vote count results from the polling stations to the CNE was interrupted when around 30 % of the electoral records (actas) were available;

J.whereas official figures indicate that only 69 211 Venezuelans living abroad were able to register to vote, although it is estimated that half of the 7.7 million Venezuelans living abroad are of voting age;

K.whereas on 29 July 2024, the CNE declared that, with over 80 % of ballots allegedly counted, Maduro had won the presidential election with 51.95 % of the votes, while González had received 43.18 % of the votes, yet it failed to publish electoral records (actas) from polling stations to support its oral announcement, which constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles; whereas this meant that the international community could not verify or corroborate the results announced by the CNE; whereas the CNE’s results management process therefore fell short of the basic transparency and integrity measures that are essential for holding credible elections;

L.whereas the opposition contested the results announced by the CNE and published more than 83.5 % of the electoral records (actas) online, with these records demonstrating that González had won the presidential election by a substantial margin, namely 67.08 % against 30.43 %; whereas the interim report of the UN Panel of Experts on the election confirms the authenticity of the documents published by the opposition;

M.whereas on 31 July 2024, Maduro asked the regime-controlled Supreme Court of Justice to certify the election results, but the contents of his request are not public and his arguments are therefore unclear; whereas on 5 August 2024, the CNE announced that it had presented all electoral records to the Supreme Court of Justice for certification, as requested by the president, but it has not made them public; whereas on 22 August 2024, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that Maduro had won the presidential election, but the ruling lacks all credibility;

N.whereas the disputed election results led thousands of people to protest across Venezuela in the days following the announcement, and there were reports of disproportionate use of force by law enforcement officials against protestors and attacks on demonstrators by armed individuals supporting the government;

O.whereas on 13 August 2024, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the continuing number of arbitrary detentions, noting that over 2 400 people had been arrested between 29 July and 13 August 2024; whereas the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela, which was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2019, recorded 23 deaths between 28 July and 8 August 2024 in the context of the protests, noting that the majority were caused by gunfire;

P.whereas on 2 September 2024, a warrant for González’s arrest was issued following a request from the Office of Venezuela’s Prosecutor General, after González failed to respond to three summons regarding the office’s investigation into the opposition website that published the electoral records (actas); whereas González is accused of engaging in conspiracy and usurping the electoral authority’s powers, and it is claimed that the opposition’s actions undermine the state’s legitimacy; whereas the term of office of the Prosecutor General, Tarek William Saab, has expired in the meantime; whereas as early as 5 August 2024, a criminal investigation was opened in Venezuela against González and Machado for announcing an election winner other than Maduro and allegedly instigating disobedience and insurrection;

Q.whereas on 8 September 2024, Edmundo González arrived in Spain, seeking asylum; whereas he had taken shelter in the embassy of the Netherlands in Caracas on 29 July 2024 and had moved to the residence of the Spanish ambassador in Caracas on 5 September 2024;

R.whereas on 14 September 2024, the Venezuelan Government announced that it had detained six foreign nationals, including three EU citizens, on the dubious grounds that they were plotting to ‘destabilise’ the country; whereas government officials have formulated extremely serious and manifestly fictitious accusations of Spanish ‘interference’ through its national intelligence agency;

S.whereas human rights violations continue in Venezuela, including arbitrary detentions, the excessive use of force against demonstrators, unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, harassment, unlawful dismissals, the persecution and prosecution of political opponents and of people exercising their rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, and violations of due process;

T.whereas in addition to the political and institutional crisis, Venezuela is experiencing a deep economic and social crisis that is severely affecting citizens’ lives; whereas there are significant shortages of public services and it is increasingly difficult for Venezuelans to access food and medicines; whereas according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 7.7 million people have been forced to leave the country and this number is growing;

1.Notes that reports from international election observation missions clearly state that the Venezuelan presidential election of 28 July 2024 did not meet international standards of electoral integrity; reiterates that the CNE has failed to publish complete and independently verifiable electoral records (actas) from all the country’s polling stations; recalls that under Venezuelan law, the CNE should publish the data by state, municipality, parish, voting centre and polling station, and should review potential discrepancies in the results of the public electoral records;

2.Stresses, in particular, that the interim report of the UN Panel of Experts, which the CNE had invited to assess the overall conduct of the election within the framework of the Barbados Agreement, underscored that the results announced by the CNE were not substantiated; recalls that the UN Panel of Experts reviewed a sample of the electoral records (actas) published by the opposition and confirmed that they exhibit all the security features of the original result protocols, which proves their reliability;

3.Urges the CNE to publish the electoral records (actas) without delay, including the voting results for each individual polling station, and to respect the fundamental principle of popular sovereignty by allowing an impartial verification of the results that ensures the transparency, credibility and legitimacy of the electoral process;

4.Underscores the importance of protecting and preserving all equipment used in the electoral process, including all printed electoral records and results, in order to safeguard the entire chain of custody of the voting process;

5.Stresses that Edmundo González appears to have won the presidential election by a large margin, according to the copies of the electoral records (actas) that are publicly available at present;

6.Expects, in this regard, that Edmundo González will be sworn in as President of Venezuela on 10 January 2025;

7.Reiterates that respecting the will of the Venezuelan people, as expressed in the election, remains the only way for Venezuela to restore democracy, allow a peaceful and genuine transition and solve the current humanitarian and socio-economic crisis;

8.Calls on the international community and regional partners to pursue all political and diplomatic efforts to facilitate dialogue between the actors;

9.Deplores the fact that none of the key recommendations from the final report of the EU Electoral Observation Mission on the 2021 elections have been implemented, and that the invitation to observe the 2024 election was revoked;

10.Calls on the Venezuelan authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all arbitrarily detained people, including foreign and EU nationals, to cease the repression of and attacks on civil society and the opposition, and to end the systematic pattern of human rights violations in the country;

11.Insists that it is important that demonstrations and protests remain peaceful at this critical time, and calls for calm and restraint; reiterates that the Venezuelan authorities, including the security forces, must show full respect for human rights, including freedom of expression and freedom of assembly;

12.Urges the international community to continue exerting the utmost pressure on the Venezuelan authorities to ensure the integrity and safety of opposition leader María Corina Machado and other opposition politicians who have remained in Venezuela;

13.Calls on the Venezuelan authorities to protect diplomatic facilities and personnel residing on Venezuelan territory, including individuals seeking asylum in such facilities in accordance with international law, and to grant safe passage;

14.Calls on the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Council to prolong the sanctions on the regime and to extend their scope to include high-level regime officials and members of the security forces who are responsible for serious human rights violations;

15.Calls on the International Criminal Court to include ongoing human rights violations and arbitrary detentions in its investigations into the alleged crimes against humanity committed by the Maduro regime and to hold those responsible to account;

16.Calls on the UN Human Rights Council to adopt, at its 57th session (9 September to 9 October 2024), a resolution renewing the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela and the presence of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Venezuela; calls for the immediate return of the OHCHR to Venezuela and urges Venezuela to ensure that the necessary conditions are in place for the OHCHR to fully exercise its mandate;

17.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 governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, the Organization of American States, the UN Secretary-General and the Venezuelan regime.