On Tuesday, the National Electoral Council (CNE) canceled the invitation to the European Union (EU) to send an observation mission for the Venezuelan presidential elections that will be held on July 28.
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"The Electoral authority revokes and annuls the invitation it extended to the EU to participate through an oversight mission," CNE President Elvis Amoroso said shortly after the Parliament President Jorge Rodriguez requested the annulment.
The CNE made this decision "based" on the exercise of its "sovereignty", and taking into account the "incalculable property damage that has been caused to the people by the sanctions, affecting the health of children and the elderly," said Amoroso.
Besides preventing Venezuelans' access to medicines, food, and education, EU sanctions make it impossible to acquire raw materials and inputs that are necessary for national production, he added, noting that EU sanctions limit the principle of economic freedom.
"From the CNE we demand that the EU proceed with the total lifting of the unilateral coercive and genocidal sanctions imposed on our people and cease its hostile position against Venezuela," Amoroso said, recalling that the sanctions generated a loss of US$125 billion that the Bolivarian nation could have been used for social investment.
The CNE president said that it would be "immoral" to allow the participation of the EU "knowing its neocolonialist and interventionist practices against Venezuela."
European election observers will be persona non grata as long as the European Union maintains its genocidal sanctions against the Venezuelan people, Amoroso stressed.