MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Euphoric Argentine lawmakers celebrate final approval of YPF seizure

The Lower House with YPF signs in the benches. Some lawmakers even had YPF T shirts on

After a two-day session, Argentina’s Lower House voted late Thursday night 207-32 in favour of expropriating energy corporation YPF, clearing the way for President Cristina Fernandez to sign the controversial bill into law.

The Senate last week and by a similar overwhelming vote had first passed the bill that seizes a majority 51% of YPF from Spain’s Repsol.

The final vote triggered applause, nationalistic shouts and a general euphoria among lawmakers while outside Congress pro government pickets that had been waiting since early Thursday set off firecrackers, waved flags, sang and danced well into the night.

The vote in the Lower House also included 6 abstentions and 12 absences including some of the members who where in the house who walked out in discrepancy with their parties’ position.

The Argentine president unveiled the plan to seize a majority stake in YPF from Spain's Repsol six months after her landslide re-election.

“All oil companies that operate in Argentina, Repsol and the rest, have to work in the public interest, which in this case means energy self sufficiency for Argentina,” Agustin Rossi, leader of the official bloc in the lower house, shouted in a speech just before the vote was taken.

During Wednesday’s session, which was paused at midnight, the head of the Energy Committee of the Lower House, Victory Front's Rosana Bertone opened the debate by assuring that the government “did not give any sign that threatened judicial and legal security” and that “there is no reason” for an international controversy between Argentina and Spain.

Vice President Amado Boudou and cabinet chief Juan Manuel Abal Medina joined the Kirchnerite organizations outside Congress to celebrate the seizure of YPF.

The Kirchnerite organizations had set camp outside Congress with banners and balloons bearing the YPF (Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales) logo. Several banners reading YPF, CFK are ours, are Argentine.”

Likewise the head of the Lower House of Congress, Julián Dominguez, highlighted the support of the opposition lawmakers to approve the law that allows the expropriation of 51% of the YPF shares.

“These were real men of politics, committed to politics and the interests of the country who voted in spite of their block’s instructions” assured Dominguez.

The former Agriculture Minister affirmed that the approval of the measure ”wasn't someone's particular victory.“

”Today the State's administration of the resources is victorious (...) It's the dream of those who dreamed with a National State at the country's development service,” he underlined.