Foreign ministers of the EU agreed at a meeting in Brussels on Monday to start work on fresh sanctions against officials close to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The move follows Maduro's re-election in a poll boycotted by the opposition and widely criticized by international observers, DW reported.

"The EU will act swiftly, according to established procedures, with the aim of imposing additional targeted and reversible restrictive measures that do not harm the Venezuelan population, whose plight the EU wishes to alleviate," the ministers said in their formal agreement.

"We are working on a list that might include 11 more individuals," an EU official said. "This might be approved (by EU foreign ministers) in June."
The sanctions are set to be formally adopted at a meeting on June 25 in Luxembourg, EU sources told the French news agency AFP.

The EU added seven senior Venezuelan officials including the interior minister to its sanctions blacklist in January. In November, it imposed an embargo on weapons and equipment that could be used for political repression.