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The EU today imposed economic sanctions on the stricken country, which is already £150 billion in debt, plunging it closer to total collapse.

European Union foreign ministers approved the sanctions including an arms embargo saying "democratic" regional elections last month were marred by irregularities.

Socialist Venezuela is in the midst of economic meltdown after years of high public spending and Government largesse.

Once the fourth-richest country in the world with more oil than Saudi Arabia, inflation is now running at 481 per cent, with a fifth of the population unemployed and a three quarters of the population losing weight due to lack of food.

Last week the state electricity company, Corpoelec, defaulted on a $28 million bond payment. And the state oil company, PDVSA, is struggling to make to $3 billion of debt payments due before the end of the year.

Spain has long pushed for EU sanctions on those close to the President Nicolás Maduro, whom Washington accuses of installing a dictatorship and slapped sanctions on in July, but the EU has been divided until now.

The arms embargo adds Venezuela to an EU list that includes North Korea and Syria, where European defence companies can no longer do business and to which the sale of any goods deemed as being used for repression are also banned.

Britain sold £1.4 million ($1.83 million) of arms to Venezuela between May 2010 and March 2017, according to The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), which lobbies to end arms sales to repressive governments.