An incensed Spain threatened swift economic retaliation against Argentina on Tuesday after it announced plans to seize YPF, the South American nation's biggest oil company, in a move which pushed down shares in Spanish energy giant Repsol, the controlling shareholder.
Madrid called in the Argentine ambassador in a rapidly escalating row over the nationalisation order by Argentina's populist and increasingly assertive president, Cristina Fernandez, a move which delighted many of her compatriots but alarmed some foreign governments and investors.
Promising action in the coming days, Spanish industry minister Jose Manuel Soria said: "With this attitude, this hostility from the Argentine authorities, there will be consequences that we'll see over the next few days. They will be in the diplomatic field, the industrial field, and on energy." "Argentina has shot itself in the foot," said Foreign Minister Jose Manual Garcia-Margallo.
Repsol said YPF was worth $18 billion as a whole and it would be seeking compensation on that basis, but the Spanish oil major's shares fell by 7.5 percent in Madrid on Tuesday. The company said it could raise money in the bond market and sell some assets to help its cash flow.
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