Licenciada En Letras

Argentina
Argentina rebounded from its economic crisis of 2001 with steady economic growth, disrupted only briefly by the global slowdown triggered by the financial crisis of 2008.
In 2010, the economy grew by 9.2 percent, the fastest in Latin America. And as its economy recovered, so did the political prospects of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was re-elected by a widemargin in October 2011.
Mrs. Kirchner, who succeeded her husband, Néstor Kirchner, in 2007 to become the country’s first female president, made a remarkable comeback. By 2009, her combative style, highlighted by a heated dispute over agricultural export taxes, sent her approval ratings below 30 percent, and economists predicted doom for the subsidy-heavy economic model first orchestrated by Mr. Kirchner.By the time of her re-election campaign, by many measures Argentina was booming: the economy was expected to grow by 8 percent in 2011, the fastest growth in Latin America; employment had reached record levels; and the poverty rate had been cut by more than half since 2007, the government said. The country continues to benefit from heavy government spending, high commodity prices and strongdemand from China for its agricultural products.
Still, in re-electing Mrs. Kirchner, voters seemed willing to look past some troubling signs. Inflation soared to over 20 percent in 2011,  second only to Venezuela’s among major Latin American economies, economists said. And the government has continued to govern with a heavy hand and little tolerance for opponents, including among the news media.Opposition candidates tried to seize on those issues but gained little traction with voters.
Nationalizing the Nation’s Largest Oil Company
In April 2012, Mrs. Kirchner announced that the government would seize a majority stake in YPF, the nation’s largest oilcompany.
The expropriation would reassert state control over an important pillar of Argentina’s economy, but it has increased diplomatictensions with Spain and the European Union.
Under Mrs. Kirchner’s plan, which she announced on national television, Argentina’s government would take a 51 percent controlling stake in YPF, which is now majority-owned by a Spanish energy company, Repsol YPF. Of that new stake, Argentina’s central government would get 51 percent and the country’s provinces 49 percent. The plan is part of a billsubmitted to Argentina’s Congress that is widely expected to be approved.
The Spanish government repeated its earlier pledge to retaliate, though it did not specify how. Following an emergency cabinet meeting in Madrid on Monday evening, José Manuel García Margallo, the Spanish foreign minister, said that Madrid “condemned with the utmost energy” Argentina’s move. The European Union alsocriticized the plan.
Repsol owns 57 percent of YPF and said Monday that it would study “all legal options available”  to defend its interests and those of shareholders against a forced sale. It was not immediately clear how YPF’s shareholders would be affected by the takeover. A tribunal would determine how much compensation that Repsol and other shareholders would receive for their YPF shares.
Mrs.Kirchner said that the expropriation of YPF, a company founded by Argentina’s government in the 1920s and privatized in the 1990s, was a “recovery of sovereignty and control.” She said the move would allow Argentina to raise production, after the country had recently become an energy importer.
For months, the central government and provincial officials had pressured YPF to raise its investments inArgentine production. The government’s tactics had included revoking concessions for coveted fields.
Seizing YPF appears to be a popular move in Argentina, where caps on residential energy prices and a growing economy have helped push energy demand to new highs. And many Argentines still resent the privatization of state-owned companies in the 1990s, so taking on YPF gives Mrs. Kirchner the...