Nicaragua's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Denis Moncada, informed, on Wednesday afternoon, the ambassador of the European Union in the capital, Managua, Bettina Mochait, that his government decided to expel her from the country.
The French Press Agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying that Mochait, who assumed her post in Managua in October 2021, was summoned to the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where Minister Moncada recited to her the decision to expel her from his country.
And electronic media issued from exile in Costa Rica reported that the expulsion of the European ambassador from Managua is imminent, and said that Managua "informed the European Union headquarters (in Brussels) that his ambassador had become persona non grata" in Managua.
According to these media, the statement made by the representative of the European Union before the Human Rights Council in Geneva last Monday, in which he called on the government of Nicaragua to "re-establish" democracy in the country, angered Managua.
According to the "100% Notícias" website, the Nicaraguan government attributed its decision to expel Ambassador Mouchet to "the European Union's interference in Nicaragua's affairs and its lack of respect for national sovereignty."
The expulsion of the EU ambassador comes seven months after Managua expelled Papal Ambassador Valdemar Sommertag.
During the past four years, the European Union and the United States imposed a series of sanctions on Nicaragua and its officials, in a move that Brussels and Washington in particular attributed to human rights violations in this country.