The deadly clashes in recent days between the Venezuelan army and Juan Guaidó's supporters on the Colombian border are due to the regime's "refusal to recognise the humanitarian emergency", said the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, on Sunday 24 February.
The EU has so far committed €60 million in humanitarian aid for 2018 and 2019 for the Venezuelan population in Venezuela or refugees in neighbouring countries such as Colombia and Brazil. It is ready to "increase" this assistance and provide it "for as long as necessary".
Last week, a Commission technical team was on site to assess the feasibility of opening a humanitarian liaison office in Caracas and to better cooperate with international organisations (UNHCR, Red Cross) in order to avoid politicising the delivery of European aid.
Ms Mogherini is therefore calling on the Venezuelan security forces to exercise restraint and allow humanitarian aid to enter Venezuela. In addition, she said, the actions of “militias” ('irregular armed groups') that intimidate the population and MPs who have mobilised to deliver this aid must stop.
Supporters of the Maduro regime consider foreign humanitarian aid to be the Trojan horse of foreign intervention, while the United States announced new measures before a meeting of the Lima Group of countries from the American continent (not the United States) to seek a way out of the political crisis in Venezuela.
On Sunday, four members of the EPP Group - the Spanish Esteban González Pons, Gabriel Mato and José Ignacio Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and the Portuguese Paulo Rangel - met with Venezuela's self-proclaimed President Juan Guaidó, recognised by some 50 countries as legitimate to hold new credible presidential elections. They had been expelled from Caracas by the Maduro regime in a previous attempt (see EUROPE 12196). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)