EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 88/686

(2004/C 88 E/0705)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0146/04

by José Ribeiro e Castro (UEN) to the Commission

(26 January 2004)

Subject: Venezuela referendum

The Venezuelan constitution provides for the possibility of calling a referendum to remove Heads of State from power after completion of half their appointed mandate, the condition for calling such a referendum being the signatures of at least 20 % of the 11 million strong Venezuelan electorate, i.e. 2,6 million individuals.

With precisely this end in view, the Venezuelan opposition handed over the total of 121 boxes, containing some three million signatures, to the National Electoral Council (NEC), in order to bring about a referendum which could bring about the destitution of President Hugo Chávez.

The media report that the authorities only recently announced that they had begun verifying the signatures, in what looks like yet another blatant delaying tactic to undermine the full-scale democratisation of the country.

This situation has led the opposition to question the fitness of the NEC, in the wake of its continual postponing of the verification procedure, and protests are already taking place outside the NEC headquarters.

The Commission:

— what information does it have in this connection;

— has it sought any guarantee form the Venezuelan authorities that the verification of the signatures will be carried out freely and fairly;

— over and above the Electoral Observers' Mission which it has already said it would send, is the Commission prepared to monitor and assess the fairness of the preliminary process of verifying the signatures, should this be proposed or suggested? Could this be a task for the likewise already announced Exploratory Mission? Or does the Commission believe that lumping this together with the task of assessing whether EU observers are advisable, useful and possible could in fact prejudice their involvement;

— what is it's assessment of Venezuelan political life in the last few months?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(2 March 2004)

The Venezuelan constitution foresees the possibility of referenda to recall public elected authorities who have reached the half term of their mandate. This was reiterated in the Agreement signed between the government and the opposition on 29 May 2003. With this aim, the opposition has been involved in collecting signatures to request referenda to recall President Chávez and 27 pro-government Members of the National Assembly and the government's supporters have also collected signatures for referenda against 37 pro-opposition members of the National Assembly.

The National Electoral Council (NEC) is currently verifying the signatures presented on 19 December 2003 by the opposition and those presented earlier by government supporters and should have completed this task on 13 February 2004, but it has been delayed until the end of February or beginning of March 2004. If there are sufficient signatures (more than 2,4 million to recall the President) the NEC must organise (a) referendum/a within 97 days (end of May 2004). Therefore, the validation of signatures is of key importance. The NEC is carrying out the verification under considerable pressure, but has received strong international support, including that of the EU. The process is progressing with minor difficulties, though the opposition has accused some members of the NEC of intentional delays in their work.

The OAS (Organisation for American States) and the CC (Carter Centre), invited by the government, are observing the verification of the signatures, in order to guarantee the transparency of the process and demonstrate that it is been undertaken in a fair way. The OAS and CC were initially just invited to be present at two of the six steps of the verification process but, following an OAS request, the invitation has been extended to all stages.

The Commission is financially supporting the OAS in the implementation of the 29 May 2003 Agreement, with an amount of EUR 600 000. Nevertheless, the Commission is not playing any other role within the process, because it has not been invited either to observe the collection of signatures or to support the verification.

The Commission supports the NEC efforts to comply with its constitutional role of verifying the signatures and has no reasons to believe the NEC will fail in its obligations. It is very important that both the government's supporters and opposition publicly commit themselves to accept any decision which is consistent with the constitution and democratic principles. The EU (Declaration of 22 December 2003) has publicly urged both parties to act in this sense. President Chávez and some parts of the opposition have done so and this contributes to decreasing possible political tension.

If the NEC's decision is that a Presidential referendum should take place, and provided that Venezuelan authorities issue an invitation to the European Union to observe, the Commission will deploy an Electoral Observation Exploratory Mission to Venezuela to make recommendations as to whether the deployment of a full EU observation mission would be advisable, useful and feasible, in accordance with the practice laid down in the Commission's Communication on Election Assistance and Observation (1).

The Commission is pleased by the fact that the processes of signature collection took place in an atmosphere of tolerance and restraint and hopes that the same spirit of tolerance will prevail during the verification process and when the NEC announces the results.

(1) COM(2000) 191 final.