More than one in five of the population has fled, triggering an international humanitarian emergency, and economic output has collapsed by more than three-quarters in six years. Once-wealthy Venezuela’s plight is desperate, yet neither the revolutionary socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro nor its main adversaries in the west have come anywhere near finding a formula to restore democracy and prosperity.

Recent regional elections crystallise the problem. The EU pressured Venezuela’s battered opposition to take part, despite the obvious lack of a level playing field, as part of a wider strategy to engage the Maduro regime in negotiations. It aimed to nudge the leadership towards a fairer framework for the next presidential election, due in 2024.

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