What changed

B100064/2025

B100068/2025

European Parliament resolution on the situation in Venezuela following the usurpation of the presidency on 10 January 2025

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Venezuela, in particular that of 19 September 2024 on the situation in Venezuela,

– having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to other UN human rights treaties and instruments,

– having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,

– having regard to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC),

– having regard to the Venezuelan Constitution,

– having regard to the Carter Center statement of 30 July 2024 on the Venezuela election and its statement of 2 October 2024 legitimising the tally sheets presented by the democratic opposition,

– having regard to the detailed findings of the independent international fact-finding mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of 14 October 2024,

– having regard to the report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of 27 December 2024 on human rights violations following the elections in Venezuela,

– having regard to the statement of 10 January 2025 by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on behalf of the European Union on the events of 10 January 2025,

– having regard to the statement of 15 January 2025 by the Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on recent decisions by the Venezuelan authorities,

– having regard to the Partial Agreement on the Promotion of Political Rights and Electoral Guarantees for All, signed by Nicolás Maduro’s regime and the Venezuelan opposition alliance, the Unitary Platform, in October 2023 (the Barbados Agreement),

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

A. whereas on 28 July 2024, the Venezuelan people voted peacefully and in high numbers to determine the future of their country, demonstrating outstanding civic and democratic behaviour; whereas after voting closed, the regime-controlled National Electoral Council refused to publish the official record of tally sheets and falsified the results of the election, announcing the false victory of Maduro; whereas the only publicly available electoral records show that the winner of the election was Edmundo González Urrutia, with 67.05 % of votes cast, corroborated by the only credible and impartial international observers, the UN mission and the Carter Center;

A. whereas there is incontrovertible evidence that Edmundo González Urrutia is the undisputed winner of the presidential election held in Venezuela on 28 July 2024; whereas his candidacy received the most votes by an insurmountable margin; whereas the will of the people proclaimed Edmundo González Urrutia the legitimate newly elected President of Venezuela;

B. whereas in the aftermath of the election, peaceful protests took place across the country to contest the fraudulent display by the Maduro regime; whereas these protests were met with extreme violence and repression, resulting in over 23 deaths and over 2 500 arrests and enforced disappearances, including of approximately 120 children; whereas Venezuelan non-governmental organisations have reported that, as of 1 January 2025, there are more than 1 697 political prisoners in the country;

B. whereas previous elections in Venezuela, including the 2018 presidential contest, have not received official recognition, amid allegations of widespread intimidation, irregularities and massive fraud by Nicolás Maduro’s regime;

C. whereas the democratic opposition to the regime faced ongoing persecution even before the elections of 28 July 2024, but this harassment has escalated significantly since then, in particular through enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests; whereas María Corina Machado, the leader of the democratic opposition to the regime, has been forced to live clandestinely due to threats against her life, and President-elect Edmundo González Urrutia was forced to flee the country with his family due to serious threats;

C. whereas since the presidential election, Maduro’s regime has escalated its crackdown on the political opposition;

D. whereas on 19 September 2024, Parliament recognised Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate and democratically elected President of Venezuela and María Corina Machado as the leader of the democratic forces in Venezuela; whereas other democratic states, namely the United States, Italy, Argentina, Panama, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Canada, Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, among others, have recognised González as the president-elect; whereas he should have been sworn in on 10 January 2025; whereas on 17 December 2024, Parliament awarded the 2024 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to María Corina Machado as the leader of the democratic forces in Venezuela and President-elect Edmundo González Urrutia, representing all Venezuelans inside and outside the country fighting for the reinstitution of freedom and democracy;

D. whereas, according to data from the authorities, peaceful mobilisations of citizens against the fraudulent election result have led to more than 2 500 arrests by the regime; whereas, according to the non-governmental organisation Foro Penal, more than 80 citizens have been arrested since the beginning of 2025; whereas Foro Penal estimates that around 1 700 political prisoners remain in prison;

E. whereas, days before the inauguration of President-elect Edmundo González, the regime kidnapped his son-in-law Rafael Tudares and his status is unknown; whereas, in the same way, the regime harassed María Corina Machado’s mother in her own house; whereas many other politicians and staff of the democratic opposition to the regime have also faced persecution, arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearance, including presidential candidate Enrique Márquez;

E. whereas on 2 September 2024, the office of Venezuela’s attorney general announced that a court had issued an arrest warrant against the opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, accusing him of conspiracy and other crimes; whereas the Maduro regime’s repression of the opposition drove Edmundo González Urrutia to leave the country and seek asylum in Spain, with the aim of protecting his freedom, his integrity and his life;

F. whereas on 910 January 2025, the Venezuelan people, ledopposition byleader María Corina Machado, protestedMachado inled the streets against Nicolás Maduro’sprotests latestin attemptCaracas toand illegitimatelywas seizeviolently power;kidnapped; whereas María Corina Machadoshe was abducted by the regime forces whilesubsequently attemptingfreed tofollowing leavean theinternational protestoutcry and was later released, in a blatant act of indiscriminate intimidation andcondemnation harassmentby thatleaders receivedall widespreadaround internationalthe condemnation;world;

G. whereas on 10 January 2025, dictator Nicolás Maduro illegitimately took power in a fraudulent act; whereas the ceremony was attended by the dictators of Cuba and Nicaragua and not by any democratically elected head of state; whereas the borders of the country were closed and the airspace was heavily guarded, which prevented President-elect Edmundo González Urrutia from travelling to Venezuela;

G. whereas the latest actions of the Venezuelan regime merely replicate the patterns of abuse and waves of repression already used by Nicolás Maduro and his allies; whereas past elections have been overshadowed by violence and intimidation of potential voters by gangs and other armed groups loyal to the Venezuelan regime;

H. whereas since the fraudulent and illegitimate seizure of power, the Maduro regime has ordered the diplomatic presence of some Member States to be considerably reduced, in an arbitrary and unjustified manner, which the regime justifies by ‘the hostile behaviour of the Governments of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, France, and Italy, characterised by their support for extremist groups and their interference in internal affairs’;

H. whereas armed groups have spread fear in both rural and urban areas, attacking voters and candidates, manipulating election results and restricting access to voting centres by imposing absolute territorial control; whereas these armed groups include the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Patriotic Forces of National Liberation (FPLN) and groups that emerged from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), operating mostly in border states and brutally enforcing curfews and regulations governing everyday activities;

1. Condemns in the strongest possible terms the usurpation of the presidency by Nicolás Maduro and highlights that his regime is illegitimate and constitutes an unlawful attempt to remain in power by force;

I. whereas over the past years, Nicolás Maduro’s regime has built a system of governance characterised by an alliance between the government and organised crime networks; whereas this is a symbiotic relationship, whereby non-state armed groups provide senior members of the regime with access to and total control over their areas of influence and, in return, the regime tolerates, and in some cases actively protects, the activities of these groups; whereas this system of governance is effectively sustaining Nicolás Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez, Tarek William Saab and other members of the regime in power;

2. Recalls that on the basis of the electoral records submitted by the democratic opposition to the regime and as stated by the independent international organisations present at the elections on 28 July 2024, such as the United Nations mission and the Carter Center, the European Parliament recognised Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate winner of the presidential elections, a victory acknowledged by the EU and its Member States;

J. whereas on 10 January 2025, the EU adopted a new package of targeted sanctions against 15 high-ranking members of the Venezuelan regime; whereas these high-ranking individuals include Diosdado Cabello, Venezuelan interior minister, Caryslia Rodríguez, President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela (TSJ), Fanny Márquez, Vice-President of the TSJ, and Alexis Rodríguez Cabello, new head of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) and relative of the interior minister;

3. Coincides with the view of the Member States that the Venezuelan regime has missed a key opportunity to respect the will of the people and ensure a transparent democratic transition in the country and that it therefore lacks any democratic legitimacy and should not be recognised;

K. whereas the Venezuelan regime is supported by international actors and countries, such as Cuba, Colombia and Nicaragua, most of them represented in the Foro de São Paulo and the Grupo de Puebla; whereas Russia and Iran are also important political and military allies of Venezuela;

4. Welcomes the statement of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on behalf of the EU recognising the victory of Edmundo González Urrutia by a significant majority; considers that he should have taken the presidential oath on 10 January 2025;

L. whereas for many years the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and its international fact-finding mission have documented numerous killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and instances of torture and ill treatment of opponents of the Maduro regime, which can be considered crimes against humanity;

5. Welcomes the recent Council decision of 10 January 2025 to extend the targeted sanctions to 15 additional individuals; calls for these sanctions to be strengthened and expanded to include Nicolás Maduro, his inner circle and their families, including Jorge Rodríguez and Vladimir Padrino López, and all those responsible for violations of human rights, the illegitimate assertion of authority, the usurpation of official functions and all repressive acts in Venezuela;

M. whereas the Venezuelan authorities have in recent years been harassing, persecuting and arbitrarily jailing politicians and members of civil society, such as union workers, journalists and human rights defenders, among many others;

6. Fully supports the work of the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela that reported the murders, harassment and violations that have been perpetrated against the democratic opposition and the Venezuelan people by the Maduro regime;

N. whereas the Venezuelan regime has stigmatised, harassed and repressed the media, closing dissenting outlets; whereas the civil society organisation Espacio Público reported 261 violations of freedom of expression in 2023, with censorship and intimidation the most common;

7. Condemns in the strongest possible terms the recent arrests of the democratic opposition to the regime ahead of the presidential inauguration, in particular the abduction and subsequent release of María Corina Machado, by the regime’s security forces, as a deliberate attempt to instil fear; further condemns the persecution perpetrated by the regime against the Venezuelan people, as well as many EU citizens that have been arbitrarily detained and remain unjustly in prison; calls for an end to the systematic pattern of human rights violations; demands the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners and arbitrarily detained persons; demands that the Maduro regime cease its policy of repression and attacks on civil society and the opposition;

O. whereas political prisoners in Venezuela face inhumane prison conditions and systematic torture, and the regime is denying them critical healthcare;

8. Calls on the ICC prosecutor to issue an international arrest warrant against Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking officials of the regime that are suspected of committing crimes against humanity; calls for the EU and its Member States to adhere to this call;

P. whereas on 10 January 2025, Nicolás Maduro was fraudulently sworn in as President of Venezuela, which should be considered a coup d’état by the international community;

9. Urges the EU, its Member States and all democratic regional and international actors to unconditionally align, as a moral duty, with the democratic forces of Venezuela and to do their utmost to restore democracy in the country in order to show solidarity with and respect for the Venezuelan people and their legitimate will and right to live in freedom and peace in a democratic system;

1. Acknowledges Edmundo González Urrutia as the newly elected and legitimate President of the Republic of Venezuela and strongly condemns the coup d’état staged by Nicolás Maduro on 10 January 2025;

10. Draws attention to the fact that the illegitimate seizure of power by Maduro has exacerbated an already pre-existing dire humanitarian crisis, which had previously driven over 8 million Venezuelans to seek refuge abroad, and will likely force even more to flee, causing renewed and increasing migratory pressure that will be felt most acutely in the countries that directly neighbour it;

2. Strongly condemns the extensive institutional repression and the systematic violations of human rights perpetrated by the Venezuelan regime following the presidential elections on 28 July 2024;

11. Believes that in the disjunction between democracy and dictatorship, there is no room for ambiguity or middle ground, as one is either on the side of the democrats and those that suffer from repression, or on the side of the dictators;

3. Calls for the EU, in particular the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR), Kaja Kallas, and the Member States to recognise Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate President of the Republic of Venezuela;

12. 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 EU-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit participants, the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, the Organization of American States, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the authorities of the Venezuelan regime.

4. Deplores the Venezuelan regime’s continuous repression, over many years, of opposition figures, including torture, enforced disappearances and killings; reiterates its firm and unconditional support for the Venezuelan people;

5. Requests the unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners unjustly and arbitrarily imprisoned by the Venezuelan regime; expresses concern for the state of health of those imprisoned, such as Alberto Trentini, an Italian volunteer helping people with disabilities;

6. Deplores Venezuela’s alignment with Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran and other dictatorial regimes;

7. Calls for the international community, the EU, in particular the VP/HR, and the Member States to impose further targeted sanctions against those members of the Venezuelan regime and its proxies responsible for violating the human rights of the Venezuelan people; calls for the EU to suspend all funds and projects destined for Venezuela; calls for the EU to freeze and confiscate, under a sound legal regime, all funds and economic resources on EU territory belonging to or owned, held or controlled by Nicolás Maduro or the Venezuelan state, or by any other members of the Venezuelan regime responsible for violations of human rights and electoral fraud;

8. 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, and the Secretary General of the Organization of American States.