Weekly Report - 19 April 2012 (WR-12-15)

Spain is at the head of the line, but the queue of countries complaining about this week’s decision by President Cristina Fernández to re-nationalise Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF), the local subsidiary of Spain’s Repsol, is growing by the hour. As Fernández continues to make policy U-turns (see our sister publication the Brazil and Southern Cone report, RBS-12-04), confidence in the country is crumbling faster than a house of cards on a windy day; with it also vanishes the government’s ability to return to international credit markets, from which it has been barred since the 2001 default.