diff --git a/lisp/ChangeLog b/lisp/ChangeLog
index 42b0894a6..9482e4b26 100755
--- a/lisp/ChangeLog
+++ b/lisp/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2009-10-21  Carsten Dominik  <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>
+
+	* org-latex.el (org-export-latex-preprocess): Protect the vspace
+	macro in the VERSE environment.
+
 2009-10-20  John Wiegley  <jwiegley@gmail.com>
 
 	* org-habit.el (org-habit-get-priority): A new function that
diff --git a/lisp/org-latex.el b/lisp/org-latex.el
index 8c259a78d..5e8a77dd1 100644
--- a/lisp/org-latex.el
+++ b/lisp/org-latex.el
@@ -1728,7 +1728,7 @@ The conversion is made depending of STRING-BEFORE and STRING-AFTER."
 	  (concat "\\hspace*{1cm}" (match-string 2))) t t)
 	(beginning-of-line 1))
       (if (looking-at "[ \t]*$")
-	  (insert "\\vspace*{1em}")
+	  (insert (org-export-latex-protect-string "\\vspace*{1em}"))
 	(unless (looking-at ".*?[^ \t\n].*?\\\\\\\\[ \t]*$")
 	  (end-of-line 1)
 	  (insert "\\\\")))