Late October, Brazil and Argentina announced that their governments would buy up private assets in financial markets.

Brazil’s plan would allow its state-controlled banks (Banco do Brasil and Caixa Economica Federal) to buy stakes in private financial institutions. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced that the government would take over the $30 billion private pension fund.

These announcements pushed Latin American markets well into the red, but they also knocked Spain’s Ibex index off 184 points, or 2%.

That should come as no surprise. Spain and Latin America have many economic ties, and some Spanish companies do so much business across the pond that 29% of net profits come from that region.

So when news of nationalization hit last week, naturally Spanish markets shuddered… With good reason.

Just look at Bolivia and Venezuela, both controlled by heavily nationalistic leaders.

Venezuela has had three major blackouts this year. Some areas spent more than two weeks without power at a time. Bolivia continues to buy up local and international stakes in its natural gas pipeline infrastructure, but it’s been shipping less than 50% of its contracted amount of natural gas to Argentina since September.

Problems like this led to a severe power crisis last summer, and forced Argentina to buy energy from Brazil.

So the question is… Will government intervention result in protection from global markets, or will pensioner and investors alike be holding worthless papers and wondering where all their money went?

And how will markets in both Latin America and Spain respond?

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High energy prices make companies both rich and greedy… In Western Europe, that boils down to acquisitions.

Last week, Electricite de France (EDF:Paris), who has been courting British Energy (BGY:London), announced it would not up its bid for the owner of most of the U.K.’s nuclear power plants. It was ready to announce an all-cash offer of $23.4 billion on Friday, but apparently, that offer is too low for the institutional investors holding large stakes in British Energy.

EDF isn’t going to let all that money sit around for long, though. With $54 bilion to spend on investments over the next two years, it’s already eyeing up other companies and developments.

Today, EDF increased its stake in Constellation Energy Group (CEG:NYSE) to 9.9%, up from 4.7%. And on Sunday, the company signed agreements to “invest in and operate two new-generation reactors in [China's] southern province of Guangdong.”

In fact, EDF is considering a number of countries and international developments for expansion. From South Africa to Qatar, EDF is looking for ways to secure both energy supplies and customers.

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