A breath of fresh air for the pockets of Italians, even if with the stopwatch in hand. The Council of Ministers has given the green light to a new emergency decree to curb the soaring fuel costs, an upward race that seemed to have no end due to the international crisis. The Meloni government has decided to replay the discount card on state taxes which weigh on the final price of petrol and diesel.
The new discount will be valid from today 1 May and for the next 21 days and will continue to reduce prices at the pump. But if for diesel the cut is significant – 20 cents per liter -, the discount on petrol is remodulated and stops at 5 cents per litre. Compared to yesterday, therefore, petrol will cost on average 15 cents more per litre. This disparity is not accidental: diesel is currently the fuel most affected by price increases and the one that has the greatest impact on freight transport and, consequently, on the cost of all of us’s shopping.
Today’s prices
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy, in self-service mode on the national road network you pay on average 1,754 euros for a liter of petrol, and 2,050 euros for a liter of diesel. When operators adopt the excise duty adjustment, it is therefore reasonable to expect that petrol will rise above 1.9 euros per litre. On the motorway it will reach almost two euros per liter while diesel today is already over the threshold of 2.1 euros per litre. According to Codacons “the reduction in the discount on petrol excise duties decided today by the government will cost Italians a total of 92 million euros”.
According to what we learn, further measures for road transport will be included in a subsequent provision. The coverage for the discount on excise duties will come from Antitrust sanctions and VAT extra revenue.
The truckers’ strike
Unatras, reiterating that at present the national shutdown of services from 25 to 29 May remains confirmed, awaits the prompt convocation from the Government to know in detail the ad hoc measures designed for road transport and to be able to make its contribution to the issuing of effective measures useful to compensate for the losses suffered by thousands of Italian companies.