A large majority of the European Parliament (EP) approved this Thursday, December 16, a resolution on Nicaragua, which condemns “the electoral farce” of November 7 and he does not know the new mandate of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. At the same time, it requires the European Union (EU) and member states to “supervise” the funds allocated to the country to prevent corruption of the regime.
The resolution was approved by 619 votes in favor, 25 against and 41 abstentions; 685 of the 705 members of the EP participated in the vote. In the document, MEPs also reiterated their demand to activate the democratic clause of the Association Agreement (AA) between the EU and Central America, which would remove Nicaragua from the trade agreement.
The eighth point of the resolution indicates that “The corruption that directly benefits the Ortega-Murillo family and the patrimonialism of the Nicaraguan regime, which also includes the looting of the country’s natural resources, are endemic and widespread and lead the country to an economic and humanitarian collapse.”
“The Union and its Member States must continue their humanitarian aid to support the most vulnerable, while exploring alternative measures to tackle widespread corruption,” notes the document, adding that the European Parliament “calls on the Union now its Member States, in this sense, to supervise the European funds allocated, also through multilateral and financial institutions, to ensure that they do not contribute to reinforcing the corruption of the regime ”.
It is the first time that a European Parliament resolution points to the funds that Europe gives to Nicaragua. Since 2018, MEPs have passed five resolutions on the Nicaraguan situation. One in May 2018; another in March 2019 -after the visit of a delegation of MEPs to the country-; a third in December 2019; a fourth in October 2020; and the last one last July.
At the beginning of last June, a group of MEPs sent a letter to President Ortega in which they warned that the future of European cooperation “will depend on whether the country recovers the path of democracy.” At that time, the regime had only imprisoned seven opposition leaders, four of them were presidential candidates — Cristiana Chamorro Barrios, Arturo Cruz, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, and Félix Maradiaga—; There are currently more than 40 political prisoners, including human rights defenders, student leaders, businessmen, former diplomats, journalists, and peasant leaders.
MEPs condemn “electoral farce”
In its first point, the resolution “cit condemns the electoral farce orchestrated by the Ortega Murillo regime on November 7, 2021, which violates all the international democratic parameters of credible, inclusive, fair and transparent elections ”.
“It rejects the legitimacy of the results of these false elections and, therefore, the democratic legitimacy of any institutional authority that arises from these rigged elections,” states the text, which continues: “it supports the statements in which it is stated that these elections they complete the transformation of Nicaragua into an autocratic regime ”.
In a debate prior to the approval, held last Tuesday in the European Parliament, a large majority of MEPs and Josep Borrell, high representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, they described the Sandinista leader as a “dictator”.
“Many years ago Ortega represented for many the force of freedom of a people that overthrew a dictatorship (of Anastasio Somoza Debayle) and won admiration (…) Now he has become the caricature of the Caribbean dictator, the mirror of the dictator against the one he fought then ”, Borrell commented before the plenary of the Europarliament in Strasbourg, France.
In the parliamentary debate, almost all the groups showed their rejection of the dictatorial drift of Ortega and Murillo. The MEP of the conservative Popular Party Leopoldo López Gil said that the European Parliament “will never be an accomplice of the pantomime, with the appearance of an electoral process that took place on November 7”.
The Spanish José Ramón Bauzá Díaz said that “Ortega has managed to plunge Nicaragua into a repression that has not been known since the worst times of Somoza.”
Sanctions and democratic clause
The draft resolution integrates the proposals for resolutions of six parliamentary groups. European Parliament sources indicated to CONFIDENTIAL that the political benches agreed on several points, mainly with regard to activating the democratic clause of the AdA, and directly sanctioning Daniel Ortega.
There are seven political groups in the European Parliament, each made up of at least 23 MEPs. The benches with the most members are the European People’s Party (178); the Socialists and Democrats (144); and Renew Europe (100).
In the resolution, the MEPs recall that, “in accordance with the Association Agreement between the EU and Central America, Nicaragua must respect and consolidate the principles of the rule of law, democracy and human rights”; for which they reiterate “their request that, in light of the current circumstances, the democratic clause of the Association Agreement be activated.”
In the debate last Tuesday, Borrell explained that “suspending these trade preferences does not mean more than treating Nicaraguan exports as if it were any other country that does not have any special treatment with us, and half of Nicaragua’s exports are raw materials. which are entering the EU today at zero tariff ”.
He explained that the European Union represents 9% of Nicaraguan exports, mainly coffee and bananas. “I do not think that the regime will be unfazed by 300 million (euros) of exports, but many Nicaraguans who work in these sectors would be affected.”
Since 2019, the EU has sanctioned 14 senior regime officials, including the vice president and first lady, Rosario Murillo. None of them can enter Community territory and their assets and shares in the EU have been frozen. This listing was renewed last October until next October 2022.
In the seventh point of the resolution, the European Parliament “Welcomes the inclusion of Rosario Murillo, along with other names, in the list of sanctioned persons that was extended until October 2022”; and “requests that Daniel Ortega be added to the list of sanctioned persons as soon as possible.”
“Ortega is a criminal and as such he should be treated, and we must hit him where it hurts the most: in his pocket and in that of all his front men who are also here in Europe. Let’s sanction Ortega once and for all, but let’s also focus on the international financing of the regime; we must freeze the disbursements that reach the regime until we can ensure that democracy has already returned to Nicaragua, ”demanded MEP Bauzá Díaz, last Tuesday.
