CARACAS: The founding members of the South American trading bloc Mercosur announced Wednesday that they have taken over its rotating presidency to block Venezuela from the post, threatening to suspend the country if it fails to comply with obligations.
“The presidency of Mercosur in the current semester will not be passed on to Venezuela, but rather exercised through coordination between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay,” read a joint statement by the four countries — Mercosur’s founding states — that Brazil released at dawn.
Venezuela would be “suspended from Mercosur” if the government of President Nicolas Maduro does not adopt all of its agreements and legal regulations, it added.
Venezuela, crippled by a major economic crisis, said it would not recognize the decision.
“Venezuela, in the full exercise of the rotating Mercosur presidency, and in accord with the treaties, rejects the declaration,” Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez posted on Twitter.
The regional trading bloc’s “decisions are adopted by consensus and respect procedural norms,” he added. “We will not allow violations of the treaty.”
Although Venezuela joined Mercosur in 2012, it has yet to ratify a large number of rules governing trade, politics, democracy and human rights.
The country was set to take over the presidency in July according to an alphabetical rotation, but only Uruguay supported the move.
Venezuela’s neighbors are becoming increasingly wary of developments in the once-booming economy.
Maduro’s opponents blame him for an economic meltdown marked by food shortages, riots and looting in the oil-rich country facing its third year of deep recession, hit hard by the plunge in global crude prices since mid-2014.
Members of Venezuela’s opposition said the ban amounted to a “defeat” for Maduro, a socialist whom they are seeking to recall from office.
“The international community is now clear about the reality (in Venezuela), where human rights are violated and there is no democracy,” said opposition deputy Luis Florido, who heads the National Assembly’s foreign policy committee.
Raquel Gamuz, a foreign policy professor at the Central University of Venezuela, agreed, saying the move dealt Maduro “a very hard blow.”
He would “participate in the multilateral organization in the same way that he governs Venezuela (but) there are regulations Venezuela has not fulfilled,” he said.
The crisis comes at a delicate moment for Mercosur, which has relaunched free-trade negotiations with the European Union.
Tensions between Maduro’s government and its Mercosur partners were exacerbated with the election of Mauricio Macri as president of Argentina in 2015 and the replacement of Brazil’s ousted former president Dilma Rousseff with Michel Temer this month.
Both right-leaning leaders replaced leftist presidents.
