Expelled EU envoy to leave Venezuela on Tuesday

CARACAS: EU ambassador to Caracas, Isabel Brilhante Pedrosa, will leave Venezuela on Tuesday after being expelled by the government in response to new sanctions, a European diplomatic source said Saturday.

The order came Wednesday for Brilhante Pedrosa, who is Portuguese, to depart within 72 hours after the EU imposed new sanctions on 19 highranking Venezuelan officials for ‘undermining democracy’. But she will leave on March 2 due to the ‘purely logistical reasons’ of lack of flights out of Caracas, the source told AFP.

She had served as EU ambassador to Caracas since October 2017, but the government of Nicolas Maduro declared her persona non grata on Wednesday.

The EU responded a day later by declaring Venezuela’s representative to the bloc, Claudia Salerno, as persona non grata.