The expropriation

National
The disqualification like lynching of the country
The expropriation
By: Carlos Damián May 15, 2012
The principle of sovereignty of the nation
México. - Amid the campaign of lynching mediatic against the government from Bolivia for the expropriation of the ‘company Transportadora de Electricidad’, property of the Spanish Electric Net (REE, in Spanish), the president of that country, Evo Morales, sustained yesterday that the investments of the Spanish oil company Repsol in the Andean nation doesn't run risk and that the company “will be respected as partner". These points out has as unavoidable backdrop the recent nationalization the filial Repsol in Argentina, YPF, fact that untied a wave of disqualifications and threatens against of the government that Cristina Fernandez heads.

The Bolivian minister of Hydrocarbons, Juan Jose Sosa, yesterday it manifested the will of the government of La Paz just yesterday to compensate REE economically for the investments carried out in the country. He said: "we will sign a contract for a company that makes the valuation of all the assets that has the company” and he affirmed to have treated the matter “in quite friendly terms” with the Spanish minister of Industry, Jose Manuel Soria. The asseverations of the Bolivian leadership, and in general, the serene and conciliatory posture that their government has assumed around the nationalization of the company electric referred they falsify the disqualifications formulated by Spanish media, in the way of presenting the decision like a “despoil” –rob-, an “attack to the company freedom” and an act of “abuse of power against Spain”.

In this context to place it, together with the measure adopted weeks behind for the regime of Buenos Aires, like part of a tendency “to take root” in Latin America “charismatic regimens because they despoil private properties and of other countries". Similar statements are false professedly by the light of the diverse existent alliances between foreign companies and progressive governments of the region, as that of the own Evo Morales in Bolivia, that of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela -in this country Repsol has important investments - or those of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. Apart from this, the attacks mediatic straightened in recent days against the governments of La Paz and of Buenos Aires they have origin in the ignorance or in the omission of one of the basic abilities and not renounceable of the States.

The Argentineans accuse from the crisis to the liberalization
The nationalization of YPF, privatized in the decade of the 90, has the back of great part of the Argentineans that they accuse the politicians of free market of the economic crisis of one decade ago. The project of expropriation of YPF determines that the State will control 51 percent of YPF which is distributed among the government (26.03%) and the counties 824.99%) - and the local Petersen group maintains 25.46%. Repsol is with 6.43% and the rest of the actions (17.09%) it remains in the stock-exchange market.

The Argentinean government alleged that in 2011 it was forced to import hydrocarbons for 9 thousand 300 million dollars, almost the equivalent one to its surplus of commercial scale, due to the lack of investments of the Spanish group in YPF, privatized in 1992. YPF produces 34 percent of the petroleum and 25 percent of the gas in Argentina and it represents 54 percent of the refinement of the market, according to IAP (in Spanish). Repsol advanced that it will claim 10 thousand million dollars at least in compensation for the expropriation and that it will make defend its rights before international tribunals. The Argentinean government sustains that Repsol leaves a debt of 9 thousand million dollars and that it enters 1999 and 2011 it charged dividends for 15 thousand 728 million dollars, in its majority it sent to the exterior.

The Bolivian State will fix payment to corporate
The government from Bolivia expropriated the filial Electric Net (RE, in Spanish) of Spain in Bolivia and it will determine in a term of six months the sum from the payment to the RE Spanish group that reverted for 15 year privatization. The government's spokesman will negotiate the compensation on a base of 39.9 million dollars. The minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy, Juan Jose Sosa, mentions the commitment of recognizing the value of the investments made by TDE (in Spanish), to those that the Bolivian government qualified as insufficient.

These abilities of the States are: to control the interests of private entities when they represent an obstacle for the development and the national sovereignty. It is not gratuitous that measured similar to those assumed recently by the government of Evo Morales and of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner they have been adopted in their moment by national regimens of different political sign and in diverse historical circumstances: be enough to mention, as samples, the politics of state interventionism undertaken by the government of Franklin D. Roosvelt in the context of the program of economic re-activation, well-known as New Deal, after the crack of 1929; the nationalization of great part of the industry in France under the presidency of Charles du Gaulle (1959 - 69) and the politicians of expropriations carried out by the governments laborites English at the end of the decade of the 40’s.

In sum, the expropriations of strategic companies of the energy sector in Argentina and Bolivia are not motivated by ill wills and personal phobias toward consortia, by no means toward countries in particular, but for the identification of specific necessities for the national development of those South American nations. For the above-mentioned they constitute, in that way, examples of legal and legitimate application of the principle of sovereignty and responsible decisions, in the measure in that they prefer the common benefits from the people to the private interests. (La Jornada, economia, p.p. 6 - 27, May 3, 2012)