Op-ed: Spain sanctions Argentine government

Spain asked yesterday that the EU Ministers of Foreign affairs to put an end to protectionist trading between Argentina and the EU until 2014.

Spain's strategy entails putting the most diplomatic and legal pressure as it can on the Argentine government. Spain will need to lean on established international law.

The goal is to create and honor an indemization for Argentina's expropriation of Repsol without the conflict getting worse than it already is. The Argentine government, led by President Christina Fernández, seems to have very different ideas about how to deal with this issue. In an evasive step forward, it declared its intent to "not pay a single peso for Repsol," words that echoed in Repsol's plummeting stock price.

At this point, diplomatic pressure is Spain's best recourse.