Written declaration No. 666 | Doc. 14651 | 12 October 2018

Humanitarian crisis in Venezuela

Signatories: Mr Duarte MARQUES, Portugal, EPP/CD ; Mr Jokin BILDARRATZ, Spain, ALDE ; Mr José CEPEDA, Spain, SOC ; Mr Telmo CORREIA, Portugal, EPP/CD ; Mr Zsolt CSENGER-ZALÁN, Hungary, EPP/CD ; Mr Constantinos EFSTATHIOU, Cyprus, SOC ; Ms Edite ESTRELA, Portugal, SOC ; Mr Carlos Alberto GONÇALVES, Portugal, EPP/CD ; Mr Jaime GONZÁLEZ TABOADA, Spain, EPP/CD ; Mr Domagoj HAJDUKOVIĆ, Croatia, SOC ; Mr Andrzej HALICKI, Poland, EPP/CD ; Mr Giorgi KANDELAKI, Georgia, EPP/CD ; Mr Konstantinos KATSIKIS, Greece, NR ; Ms Stella KYRIAKIDES, Cyprus, EPP/CD ; Mr Luís LEITE RAMOS, Portugal, EPP/CD ; Ms Esther MUÑOZ, Spain, EPP/CD ; Mr Killion MUNYAMA, Poland, EPP/CD ; Mr Paulo PISCO, Portugal, SOC ; Mr Aleksander POCIEJ, Poland, EPP/CD ; Mr Jordi ROCA, Spain, EPP/CD ; Ms Melisa RODRÍGUEZ HERNÁNDEZ, Spain, ALDE ; Ms Ulla SANDBÆK, Denmark, UEL ; Ms María Concepción de SANTA ANA, Spain, EPP/CD ; Mr Stefan SCHENNACH, Austria, SOC ; Ms Tineke STRIK, Netherlands, SOC ; Mr Egidijus VAREIKIS, Lithuania, EPP/CD ; Mr Miltiadis VARVITSIOTIS, Greece, EPP/CD ; Mr Evangelos VENIZELOS, Greece, SOC ; Mr Jordi XUCLÀ, Spain, ALDE ; Mr Emanuelis ZINGERIS, Lithuania, EPP/CD

This written declaration commits only those who have signed it.

According to the United Nations, thousands of Venezuelan citizens are “starving, deprived of essential medicines, and trying to survive in a situation that is spiralling downwards with no end in sight. Families have been forcibly evicted from their homes with excessive use of force; many homes have been demolished and personal belongings confiscated. Due process and rule of law have been abandoned in these cases.”

Inflation in Venezuela “could reach one million percent by December 2018, only comparable with Germany’s after the First World War”.

The largest communities in Venezuela have European origins, more than two million citizens with Spanish, Italian or Portuguese origin. The European diasporas blocked in Venezuela today numbers around one million citizens.

Thousands are crossing the borders as refugees, moving to Brazil or Colombia, others are trying to come to Europe, while the rest are still locked in Venezuela.

While the Parliamentary Assembly strives to help refugees coming from Africa, more than one million European descendants need our help in Venezuela.

We call on all member States and the European Union to develop a strategy that gives priority to a humanitarian corridor to supply food and medicines, but also a programme of reintegration with responses to housing, education, social problems and employment.