The United States, the European Union and Canada seek to make the negotiations between the Venezuelan parties one of mutual concessions

Caracas. – “The joint statement of the United States, Europe and Canada represents a decisive change in the international attitude towards Venezuela: a policy that now seeks to accompany sanctions relief based on concrete progress on electoral and institutional matters,” emphasizes the political scientist and professor. In IESA, Michael Penfold (ed.).

In a thread he published on his Twitter account on Monday, he referred to the goal of the statement of the trio of international actors as “comprehensive negotiations” and not “comprehensive.”

“Nothing is negotiated until everything is negotiated—noting the mutual concessions that must be built incrementally to pay for the electoral track,” the strategic planning expert highlights.

In this sense, it notes that the North American and European text “recognizes that regional elections are the first step on this path – which represents a fundamental change in the position of the most staunch sections of the democratic opposition – and urges that (Nicolás) Maduro guarantees the restoration of political and civil rights.”

He explains that the text “explicitly” does not refer to the necessity of re-electing or renewing the National Electoral Council, which now includes representation for the opposition, but rather “speaks of setting a specific time frame (“time-bound”) for the presidency and the legislature. It focuses on guarantees: political prisoners, parties, and cases of missing persons. eligibility.”

“In this sense, they seem to suggest that the best way forward is the pendulum, leaving the public stage to a later time, and making use of the channels that civil society and the more moderate wing of the democratic opposition have opened in the past year,” he says. world of politics.

In his view, this statement, added to the initial visit to the EU to assess electoral conditions, “represents important and realistic progress. The country appears to be pushing, despite the uncertainty, better conditions to address the complex political situation it is facing.”