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The government led by Delcy Rodríguez and sectors of the Venezuelan opposition have reached a rare consensus: to work together to recover the 31 tonnes of gold that Venezuela has kept in the vaults of the Bank of England for almost eight years.
The United Kingdom stopped recognising the Venezuelan government in 2018, which in practice blocked access to those assets, now tied up in a legal dispute that has yet to be resolved.
According to the joint statement released on Wednesday by both delegations, the funds are needed to support reconstruction after the 24 June earthquakes, which left more than 6,000 people dead according to the latest figures.
The MP Ramón López, a member of the 2015 National Assembly delegation taking part in the dialogue tables, told a national television channel that the release of those assets would be conditional on “all the necessary planning and control mechanisms”, under a plan focused on housing, health centres and schools in the affected areas.
López added that the funds would be deposited in accounts of the US Treasury Department and subjected to audits by international firms as a condition for their disbursement.
The political leader stressed that the agreement does not involve a trade-off between the release of the gold and a reform of the Supreme Court of Justice, an issue that was also discussed at the technical meetings along with strengthening the judiciary and the electoral authority.
An economy battered by crisis and natural disaster
The Venezuelan economy, already weakened by years of mismanagement, corruption and US sanctions, continues to feel the impact of the earthquakes. The country’s central bank reported that the disaster helped push monthly inflation up to 19.9% in July, from 13.8% in June, with annual inflation estimated by economists at around 575%.
Rodríguez had written to King Charles last month to request the release of the gold held in Threadneedle Street. An opposition source consulted by the ‘Financial Times’ said that “transparency mechanisms” will be put in place to prevent the funds “from ending up being stolen by the government”, and acknowledged that “there is no naivety” about the nature of the interim administration.
For its part, the British Foreign Office made clear that the UK government is not a party to the court case that will determine control of the gold, and reiterated its support “for a democratic transition of power in Venezuela that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people”. The Bank of England, which is waiting for a legal ruling before releasing the bars, declined to comment.
The context of the negotiations
The talks are taking place as the United States has suspended some sanctions on Venezuela and is working closely with Rodríguez, who served as Nicolás Maduro’s vice president, to open up the country’s natural resources to foreign investment.
The dialogue roundtables do not include María Corina Machado, the most popular opposition leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who has been living in Washington since late last year and was barred from returning to Venezuela after the earthquakes. The process has caused splits both within the opposition and among the hardest-line factions of the ruling party.
Since the capture of Maduro, Venezuela has gradually been regaining access to international funds, including 350 million dollars released in July from a tranche deposited at the IMF.
Rodríguez’s government is also seeking access to 4.6 billion dollars in Special Drawing Rights, reserve assets of the IMF that member countries can exchange for other currencies, something the opposition had already agreed to in previous, abortive negotiations. It is estimated that the country’s sovereign debt stands at around 240 billion dollars, which would make the restructuring under way the largest in history.