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News > Germany

Germany Won't Recognize Guaido's Envoy as Ambassador

  • Opposition politician Juan Guaido at a meeting in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 19, 2019.

    Opposition politician Juan Guaido at a meeting in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 19, 2019. | Photo: AFP Vvdeo screanshot

Published 27 March 2019
Opinion

The Venezuelan opposition's destabilizing plan meets the resistance of diplomatic procedures.

A German government's written response leaked Wednesday states that the European country will not recognize the opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido's envoy to Berlin as Venezuela's ambassador despite having recognized Guaido as "interim president" of the country after his self-declaration.

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The local media Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ), which gained access to the government's response reported that Germany will not accredit Otto Gebauer as ambassador. Instead, he could be recognized as Guaido's personal representative and "no further steps are foreseen."

The German Foreign Affairs Ministry stresses that "political conditions" to recognize the Guaido’s envoy "are not met" given that the 30-day maximum period he had to call elections has expired.

The NOZ also published that Berlin is responding to a request of Spain's government, which has asked its European partners not grant diplomatic status to Guaido's representatives.

The argument is that Guaido is politically recognized but without any legal effects since European countries seem unwilling to ignore the fact that President Nicolas Maduro and his government continue to hold control over most of Venezuela's institutions. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. and it allies are determined to recognize Guaido as self-proclaimed interim president and work with the Venezuelan opposition to overthrow Maduro by any possible means.

Nevertheless, the legitimate Venezuelan authorities have stressed that the U.S.-backed coup d'état has already failed and warned that those countries that recognized Guaido "will at some point have to review their decisions," as HispanTV reported.

In February, Antonio Ecarri, another Guaido envoy, was not recognized as the Venezuelan ambassador in Spain either. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez administration accepted him as the congressman's personal representative but without granting him any diplomatic rank.

According to the Elcano Real Institute researcher, Carlos Malamud, the Spanish government's refusal is based on an "obvious" fact, namely, President Maduro is the person who is really exercising authority over the Venezuelan state.

"Today Maduro is the one who controls the power devices. From the perspective of international relations, it would be totally utopian for the Spanish government, or for any European government, to decide that it does not know that the control of the Venezuelan state is still in Maduro's hands," Malamud told the local media Alnavio and added that if Spain recognized Guaido's envoy as the legitimate Venezuelan ambassador, "Spanish interests would be left unprotected."

Currently, Spanish multinationals such as Repsol, Telefonica, BBVA and Mapfre are working in Venezuela, a country where about 180,000 Spaniards reside too.

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