Spain: Companies 'need to think twice before investing in Argentina'

Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation José Manuel García Margallo, along with Spanish ambassador in Montevideo Roberto Varela, questioned the recent YPF expropriation and assured that there’s not enough legal security in Argentina to attract foreign investors.

They also said that Uruguay could be an interesting alternative for Spanish companies and that Repsol is already considering the possibility of investing in the neighbouring country. 

“Investors will be thinking twice before going to Argentina,” Margallo said while discussing the recent nationalization of YPF. 

“I believe Argentina’s decision is not the best kind of advertisement you want to lure investment. When you make these kinds of decisions people will be thinking twice before investing again in Argentina,” García Margallo added.

“President Mariano Rajoy believes that you cannot judge an entire region based on the behaviour of just one country,” the minister stated. 

Roberto Varela also said that the oil company expropriation “will evidently have consequences and companies will probably go with a different alternative in order to invest.”

“If we have one country has no legal security and another that does, you don’t have to be too bright to know where business will go. So we expect this will have a positive repercussion in Uruguay,” he said.

“From the get go we know that this country offers legal security for foreign investments. Therefore we hope those investments increase in any field available and that they are profitable for both sides,” Varela concluded.