|
News, December 2007King walks out as Venezuela's Chavez attacks Spain.13 November. The Iberoameican Congress in Santiago last week came to a sad end when King Juan Carlos walked out after Venezuela's president Chavez attacked former president Aznar as being a fascist. Spain is now attempting to defuse the tension. Chavez claimed on Sunday that the accusations had to do with Spain's apparent support for an attempted coup against him in 2002. The real problem appears to be that the new populist regimes of several Latin countries are getting angry at the success of Spanish firms which have invested heavily in the region. While Bolivia struggles to get out of poverty, oil firm Repsol appears to be doing nicely on the profits of investment in their gas deposits. Likewise, Spanish electricity generators and suppliers, banks and other multinationals, such as Telefonica, are doing very well on the back of heavy investment in Latin America. Telefonica, for example has 126 million users in Latin America and got 35% of its earnings there in the last year. The populist regimes now want to take the profit from this investment for themsleves. We are unable to compare returns from Spain sent by migrant workers, but they are not small. |