ABSTRACT
Introduction Spanish foreign policy and Spanish FDI in Latin America were very closely related in the 1980s, but not so much thereafter. The reason is that many Spanish firms that made FDIs in the 1980s and early 1990s in Latin America were partially or totally state-owned monopolies, as Telefónica or Iberia.1 In the 1990s these firms were gradually privatized and thus their link to the state was weakened. This is also a reason why high-ranking officials in the Spanish Foreign Ministry underlined in 2005 that a clear difference should be outlined between Spanish foreign policy guidelines and the decisions taken by privately-owned Spanish firms operating in Latin America, even if the foreign policy agenda aims to nourish and promote Spanish interests abroad through bilateral and multilateral agreements. Before providing a detailed analysis of Spanish foreign policy in Latin America, I will discuss the economic and political context in which it took place.
