Hold-up provides time to pen Spanish article (5)
I believe the answer is:
delay
'hold-up' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'time to pen spanish article' is the wordplay.
'time' becomes 'day' (day is a kind of time).
'to pen' indicates putting letters inside.
'spanish article' becomes 'el' (the definite article 'the' in Spanish).
'day' placed around 'el' is 'DELAY'.
'provides' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for delay that I've seen before include "Postponement" , "Temporise" , "Put off until later" , "Postpone, defer" , "Time lapse" .)