Opening remarks by Antonio TAJANI, EP President of the plenar session in Brussels (30-31/01/2019) on the situation in Venezuela.  The following transcription is the result of an automatic process. Check Against delivery.

Brussels

TAJANI, Antonio (EPP, IT)

plenary session

EU - Venezuela (T)

Opening remarks by Antonio TAJANI, EP President on the situation in Venezuela

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Antonio TAJANI, EP President, <a></a>Colleagues, I'd like to begin by talking about a subject that causes great sadness. in Venezuela, as you know, last week there were the mass protests against the regime and the speaker of the National Assembly why Juan Guaid&oacute; declared himself interim actingpresident on the basis of theVenezuelan constitution following that in large part of the international community, including Latin American states recognized him as acting president more than 400 people were killed and more than 900 people were arrested during the protest that took place next Saturday .

The next Saturday, the Venezuelan people back in the streets calling for fundamental rights. The European Union's already given its opinion 8 times on the situation in Venezuela. No other country has had so much attention.Unfortunately, the situationis worsening. And has reached a point of no return the Maduro regime that has prompted more than 3 million people to leave their country. This is the biggest wave of immigration that has ever affected Latin Americaif things don't changesoon.

Venezuela will collapse with terrible consequences for the entire regionafter the events of last week the EuropeanParliament cannot stand by in silence, I spoke to President Guaido by telephone to assure him ofthe support of the European Parliament.Wehope granted the Sakharov Prize to the democratic opposition of Venezuela and we were the first institution to denounce attack on human rights and to call for sanctionsagainst the regime, to preventit from.And so, and called for a strategy to helpdeal with the migration crisis. Some countries are only concerned about.