Ambassador Claudia Salerno: Venezuela’s Presidents Are Not Elected in Brussels
The Venezuelan ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxemburg, Claudia Salerno, denounced “the worst of the European right and the worst of the Venezuelan extreme right abroad, who have decided, in their frustration at Trump’s failed agenda, to transfer their encouragement to the EU and continue inflaming the situation in order to hinder the relationship with Venezuela.”
After being declared persona non grata by the EU bloc, the diplomat indicated in an interview with Sputnik news agency that “a list of sanctions has nothing to do with that message with which they say they agree,” of dialogue and electoral channels.
RELATED CONTENT: European Union Declares Venezuelan Ambassador Claudia Salerno ‘Persona Non Grata’
She regretted that Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands, which call themselves the core group on Venezuela in the EU, promoted “by surprise” and without consultation, new sanctions “at a time when we were building a solid bridge to establish the criteria for dialogue, of an approach of respectful cooperation.”
🇻🇪🇪🇺 Sputnik conversa en exclusiva con la que hasta ahora fue embajadora de Venezuela ante la Unión Europea, Claudia Salerno, quien fue declarada persona no grata por el Consejo de Asuntos Exteriores de la UE.
— Sputnik Mundo (@SputnikMundo) February 27, 2021
“The contradiction is within the European institutions and not in Venezuela. We continue to send the same message: the presidents of Venezuela are not elected in Brussels or Strasbourg in the plenary sessions of the European Parliament, they are elected in Venezuela,” she emphasized.
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She also stressed that “it is not by chance that a few days before Germany appeared in Brussels with the list of 19 officials, a former leader of the Venezuelan opposition, who no longer represents anything or anybody whatsoever in the national political context, Mr. Leopoldo López, made a visit to Berlin. A few days later, Germany promoted the motion in Belgium that Venezuelan officials be sanctioned in order to subject European institutions to the regime change agenda.”
Salerno, who remains ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, indicated that despite imposing personal restrictions “the impact [of sanctions] is collective from the moment they touch any person who has a job as a public servant.”
She reiterated that sanctions violate International Law.
Featured image: Venezuelan ambassador Claudia Salerno. File photo.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/OH
