EU to 'Rapidly' Adopt Venezuela Sanctions

EU foreign ministers will agree next week that they are ready to "rapidly" adopt sanctions against Venezuelan officials involved in Nicolas Maduro's re-election, European sources said Friday.

The ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday are set to give the green light for work to begin so that the sanctions can be formally imposed in June, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

The move comes after the EU said on Tuesday that it would consider fresh sanctions because the election failed to comply with "minimum international standards" and there were "numerous reported irregularities."

"In this context the EU will act rapidly with the aim of imposing additional restrictive measures, selective and reversible, which will not affect the Venezuelan people," said a draft statement by the ministers, cited by a diplomatic source to AFP.

They are likely to be formally adopted at a meeting on June 25 in Luxembourg, the sources said.

Maduro won 68 percent of the vote in election that was boycotted by the opposition and condemned as illegitimate by much of the international community.

Venezuela on Wednesday accused the European Union of "prejudice" in its reaction to the elections, and said that the bloc had declined an invitation to send observers to the vote.

The EU had warned in April that it would consider further sanctions against Venezuela of its own if the elections were not fair.

In January Europe added seven senior Venezuelan officials including the interior minister to its sanctions blacklist, after hitting Caracas in November with an embargo on weapons and equipment that could be used for political repression.