In a show of support but without an official statement, Pedro Sánchez received the Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González

Less than 24 hours after the Spanish Congress approved recognizing the opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia as the elected president of Venezuela and the Chavista regime asked Nicolás Maduro to break relations with Spain, President Pedro Sánchez met with the former Venezuelan candidate in Madrid on Thursday.

González Urrutia, a 75-year-old former ambassador who agreed to run for the opposition coalition of leader María Corina Machado – who is disqualified from running – is the presumed winner of the July 28 elections. Although his opponent, the current president Nicolás Maduro, declared himself the winner without showing the electoral records that would certify it.

Harassed and persecuted by the Chavista regime, The former opposition candidate fled Venezuela last weekend and landed in Spain on Sundaywhere he will be granted political asylum, although Pedro Sánchez’s government does not recognize him as president-elect.

However, as he promised from China, where he spent the whole week on an official trip, the first thing Sánchez did He had barely returned to Madrid when he summoned the oppositionAt ten in the morning and without access to the press, he received González Urrutia at the Moncloa Palace.

The meeting was not on the government’s agenda. There was no official announcement either. Just a video without voice which the Spanish president uploaded to his social networks, where he is seen walking through La Moncloa park with the former opposition candidate to Chavismo alongside Carolina, González Urrutia’s youngest daughter.

The peaceful, bucolic stroll they share in the video contrasts with the news coming from Venezuela. In Caracas, Jorge Rodríguez, brother of Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and president of the National Assembly – the parliament dominated by Chavismo – was shouting for an imminent resolution: “All diplomatic relations must be immediately broken off.all commercial relations -Rodríguez requested-. Let all representatives of the delegation of the government of the Kingdom of Spain and all the consuls leave here. And we will bring our people from there.”

“And that all commercial activities of Spanish companies be stopped immediately,” he insisted.

The claim had already reached Spain when Pedro Sánchez and González Urrutia met. The Spanish president preferred to bet on moderation: “I warmly welcome Edmundo González Urrutia to our country, whom we welcome, showing Spain’s humanitarian commitment and solidarity with Venezuelans -he said on his social networks-. Spain continues to work in favor of democracy, dialogue and the fundamental rights of the brotherly people of Venezuela.”

After the meeting, the opponent of Chavez circulated a statement in which he said: “My commitment to the mandate I have received from the sovereign people of Venezuela is unwavering.”

But for the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, the fact that in Spain there is a recognition, albeit symbolic, of the legitimacy of the opposition candidate, “It is equivalent to a declaration of war against the people of Venezuela and against the legitimately constituted government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”

“And we will not accept it. Let them keep their murderers, their coup plotters, their fascists, their violent people,” added Rodriguez.

From the Popular Party, promoter of the initiative that the Spanish Congress voted yesterday to recognize González Urrutia as the legitimate winner of the elections in Venezuela, Esteban González Pons, head of Foreign Affairs for the party, gave his opinion: “This is how the coup plotters respond to the Congress of Deputies“We will see what they say to the European Parliament next week. The International Criminal Court is waiting for them, it is only a matter of time.”

Both the recognition of González Urrutia as the winner of the July elections that was approved on Wednesday in the Spanish Congress of Deputies and the request of the representative of the Venezuelan National Assembly to break diplomatic and commercial relations with Spain are gestures that do not translate into concrete measures. since it is the governments of both countries that set the agenda and positions in foreign policy.

However, the threat of Chavismo generated concern in Spain, a country that increased its investments, Currently around 500 million eurosin Venezuela.

Banking, telephone and hydrocarbon entities are the main Spanish sectors in Bolivarian lands.

Repsol, for example. has been present there since 1993 although lately it only receives oil in payment of the debt that Venezuela assumed with the oil company.

Clarion The Spanish Corporation for Strategic Reserves of Petroleum Products (CORES) was consulted on how a possible breakdown in bilateral relations could impact. However, the organisation, which depends on the Ministry for Ecological Transition, declined to comment.

The ministry referred the query to the Foreign Ministry who in turn refused to comment to the press.

Yes, the government spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, did: “The (Spanish) embassy in Venezuela is working with absolute normality. Our interest will always be to work for Maintain the best relations with the Venezuelan peoplenot like others, who use Venezuelans to attack the Spanish government.”

Alegría, who is also Minister of Education, was referring to the PP. Its president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, is betting on extending to the European Parliament the non-legislative proposal that his party presented on Wednesday in the Spanish Congress and that was supported by other parliamentary groups such as Vox, the Basque Nationalist Party, the Canary Islands Coalition and the Navarrese People’s Union.

“We will continue working for the recognition of what Venezuelans have voted for”said Núñez Feijóo

This is what his party said ironically: “A government like the Spanish one, which withdrew its ambassador from Argentina for questioning the exemplary nature of Begoña Gómez, cannot be surprised that Venezuela is now threatening to do something similar. Maduro and Sánchez agree on two things: Neither of them have won the elections and they both get angry when they don’t like the decisions of a foreign country.”

This is how the PP recalled the tension between Argentina and Spain caused by the statements of President Javier Milei, when he referred to Pedro Sánchez’s wife – investigated for alleged influence peddling – calling her “corrupt”. Milei had previously been insulted by a minister of the Spanish government, Oscar Puente, who had implied that the Argentine president consumed substances.

Milei’s words offended Pedro Sánchez’s government, which withdrew its ambassador from Buenos Aires, a measure it has maintained for almost four months.