EU Lawmaker on Terrorist Label for 'Cartel de los Soles': 'What Pablo Escobar Dreamed of, Maduro Has Achieved'

The European Parliament voted Thursday to urge the European Union to add Venezuela's Cartel de los Soles to its list of designated terrorist organizations, with Spanish lawmaker Alma Ezcurra declaring that, through the organization, President Nicolás Maduro had achieved what drug lord Pablo Escobar once only imagined.

"What Pablo Escobar once dreamed of, Maduro has achieved: he controls a loyal army, has embassies in our capitals, and sits in the United Nations," Ezcurra told fellow members during debate on the resolution. "Maduro is a narco, yes, but with state power, and he uses terror to subjugate his people with the complicity of governments and leaders in Europe."

Ezcurra, who belongs to Spain's People's Party, continued:

"That is why today the Popular Party wants to ask our Chamber for two things: first, that Europeans jointly declare the Cartel de los Soles, led by Maduro along with the Colombian narco, as terrorist organizations. And second, that this be only the first step toward actions that are much more decisive, much deeper, and much braver, because the world and Europe cannot remain passive in the face of what the peoples of Venezuela and Colombia are suffering"

The resolution, adopted with 355 votes in favor and 173 against, calls on the EU Council to update its terrorism list to reflect current realities in Colombia and the wider region. It specifically names the Cartel de los Soles, along with the Clan del Golfo and FARC dissident groups, as organizations providing support, refuge, and logistics to Colombian armed groups.

Parliamentarians described the cartel as a criminal network allegedly led by Maduro and other senior officials including Diosdado Cabello, Jorge Rodríguez, Delcy Rodríguez, and General Vladimir Padrino López. The resolution echoes prior U.S. designations, accusing the group of facilitating narcoterrorism, cocaine trafficking to the United States and Europe, and using Venezuelan state institutions to corrupt military and judicial officials.