09/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - In a written question to the European Commission, the Euro-MPs members of Democratici di sinistra, Pasqualina Napoletano and Gianni Pittella, asked what the Union intended doing to help Venezuela overcome the current serious crisis, marked, "on the one hand, by acts of violence organised by the most radical sectors close to the government of President Chavez, and, on the other, acts verging on a coup d'état by certain extremist elements of the opposition". Such a situation represents a real threat to democracy and freedom, say the two MEPs, recalling that a very vast European community lives in Venezuela, within which there is a large community of Italian origin.