MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia’s Morales takes distance from YPF/Argentina conflict and praises Repsol

Bolivian president said “the issue Argentina/Repsol is an issue between Argentina and Spain”

Bolivian president Evo Morales clearly took distance from Argentina’s expropriation of YPF, the Argentine affiliate of Spain’s Repsol which was announced on Monday and caused a major rift between Argentina and Spain and the European Commission.

“The issue Argentina-Repsol is an issue between Argentina and Spain, of Repsol as a company and Argentina. It won’t cause any problem to us because we have a relation of great trust with Repsol”, said Morales on Tuesday during a brief press conference in La Paz.

Morales who announced the nationalization of hydrocarbons in Bolivia not long after taking office in 2006 but then negotiated new contracts with the foreign oil and gas corporations said that “Repsol respects all Bolivian rules and investments promised are going ahead in good manner”.

The Bolivian president admitted “a moment of tension” with Repsol when the Constitutional assembly was drafting the country’s new constitution in 2009 and “the rules were not clearly defined” and then there was a bit of a stall in the investments, but once “the new constitution was approved, and the new contracts, investment accelerated and rapidly picked up”.

“This incident between Repsol and Argentina, I’m convinced that it won’t influence at all in Bolivia because our agreements signed with those corporations and because of the trust existent between the governments of Spain and Bolivia”.