Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, denounced that Spanish companies were going to Mexico with colonialist and monopolistic interests, without understanding that the time is different. | Photo: EFE

Mexico City, February 10 (RHC)-- Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador made statements on Thursday regarding the dispute between Mexico and Spain, and specified that his proposal to pause relations has nothing to do with a diplomatic rupture, as some people had expected.

As part of his daily press conference at the National Palace, the head of state clarified his statements at the press conference the day before -- when he mentioned distancing the two governments for a while in order to reorder the bilateral relationship.

López Obrador said that recently Spanish companies such as Iberdrola, Repsol and OHL abused Mexico.  He added that these companies perceived themselves as colonialists in a land of conquest, without realizing that this stage is over.  He pointed out that this does not mean a break in relations.

In this regard, he commented that when the president of Iberdrola visited the Latin American nation, he did not understand the position expressed by the Mexican government that times are different and, on the contrary, he insisted that the looting was legal and did not accept that the contracts from which they benefited were the result of a period of clientelism of the governments of Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, and some previous administrations.

In the President's opinion, the clientelism was such that a Secretary of Energy was a director of that company.  He added that former President Calderón, who disappeared the Luz y Fuerza del Centro company and left 40,000 people unemployed in order to favor Iberdrola, went to the board of directors of that company at the end of his term.

According to AMLO, these privileges guaranteed the monopolistic nature of the company, which has offended Mexicans because, in addition to the fact that high officials work for them, this type of relationship allocated multi-million subsidies in favor of these companies, instead of being used to fight poverty.

"How much did Repsol take from Mexico during Calderón's government only in illegitimate subsidies, and those of OHL, which was the favorite company of the last six-year term, also Spanish," he asked.  The Mexican president reiterated that what he said on Wednesday is based on these data, and that is why he requested a period of pause in relations for the good of the peoples, but not a rupture.

"Sometimes it takes time for people to understand that there are already other conditions.  As it took quite a long time for the looting, everything that was the neoliberal period, 36 years, they do not internalize that this is already different.  So we have to be warning them.