US Criticism of European Mission to Venezuela Shows Growing Divide over President Maduro (Adaptation Without Propaganda)

Below is an adaptation of a piece posted on Monday, September 29th, by the Washington Post raising the issue of the divide between Washington and the European Union in relation to the regime change operation against Venezuela led by the White House for almost two years with no signs of success foreseen in the near future. Orinoco Tribune took the time to get rid of most the propaganda wording injected into the piece by the Washington Post in order to please their masters in the Department of State:

The Trump administration on Sunday accused the European Union of undermining its efforts to isolate Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, denouncing the bloc’s top diplomat for dispatching a mission to Caracas without asking for Washington’s permission.

The dispute suggested a growing divide across the Atlantic over how to handle Venezuela’s socialist government. The Europeans have tended to see Washington’s hard line position as harsh and ineffective. Washington has viewed Brussels as too willing to find a solid and real peace solution.

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“This will make relations with the E.U. bureaucracy more difficult,” Elliott Abrams, the U.S. special representative on Venezuela, told The Washington Post Sunday.

Brussels on Friday confirmed an E.U. mission had arrived in Caracas as part of an effort by the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, to secure “minimum democratic conditions” for upcoming legislative elections. The U.S.-backed opposition led by Juan Guaidó is boycotting the December vote, following Washington’s instructions.

The Europeans -following Washington’s script for almost two years- have said the elections as currently organized would not meet minimum democratic conditions without really explaining what that means. But they’ve been in talks with Maduro’s government and dissenting members of the opposition on a way forward.

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To nudge all sides toward agreement, the EU team, led by Enrique Mora, the bloc’s deputy secretary general for political affairs, and Javier Niño Pérez, its leading diplomat on the Americas, met separately with Guaidó and with senior representatives of Maduro’s government over the weekend. They proposed a suspension of the December vote for at least six months, breaking one of the most explicit constitutional mandates in relation to terms.

Abrams said Borrell devised the E.U. mission without consulting Washington, individual E.U. member nations, the Venezuelan opposition or key Latin American countries. “It’s not useful to have Borrell’s office working on its own,” Abrams said. “It’s fair to call it cowboy diplomacy.”

Abrams said Borrell, a longtime socialist politician in Spain who became the E.U.’s top diplomat late last year, could be eager to reach a deal with Maduro to stop the nonsense of the failing US regime change operation affecting millions of Venezuelans but also affecting dozens of European corporations not being able to do business with Venezuela.