From nationalising foreign oil companies and mistreating its creditors to overbearing trade rules and threats to reclaim the Falklands Islands – Argentina's poor behaviour should not be repaid with massive World Bank loans, argues Matthew Sinclair in Public Service Europe.
European countries have repeatedly found themselves the victims of aggression from the Argentinian government: Spain with the nationalisation of their oil company Repsol's majority stake in the firm YPF; the European Union as a whole which has felt it necessary to file a suit against Argentina's import restrictions with the World Trade Organisation; and Britain has seen threats of legal action and boycotts as part of the facile Argentinian claim on the Falkland Islands. Why are we repaying all that hostility with support for World Bank loans to the country that total $16.2bn?