It was not pure arm-twisting by the prime minister or the Spanish crown to the companies. It was with support to convince them to support it. It was the need also of Spain to support the former colonies, if you want to put it that way. The cultural relations are very strong, and there are a large number of Spanish descendants in Latin America, so they felt it was a bit of a responsibility of Spain to help Latin America come out of the problems that they experienced during the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s.
On February 8th, 2007. See this statement in context.