With tax breaks expiring and delay to the variable excise decree, diesel prices climb. Hauliers warn of a strike as the government summons oil firms with initial price caps.
Diesel goes back to costing €0.61 more per litre from Tuesday, after the expiry at midnight of the latest tax break on fuel. Without publication in the Official Gazette of the expected ministerial decree, the much-heralded mechanism of "mobile excise duties" remains on hold.
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Filling up at the pump is officially more expensive, marking the complete disappearance of tax cuts on fuel for the first time since last March, when the first decree was approved following the outbreak of the conflict between the United States and Iran.
Despite assurances in recent days about activating mobile excise duties, the joint measure from the Ministry for the Environment and Energy Security and the Ministry of Economy and Finance did not arrive in time.
Mobile excise duties are a tool designed to reuse the extra VAT revenue generated by the rise in crude oil prices in the previous month. Compared with discounts funded from the public purse, this system does not add to the deficit, but only allows a smaller reduction in prices.
The diesel excise rate therefore returns to ordinary levels. It is the final act in a scaling back that began on 26 September, when the original discount of €0.122 per litre had already been halved.
On the government’s table, the issue of targeted measures for lower-income households and haulage operators also remains unresolved, with no political agreement reached so far.
Palazzo Chigi had announced its intention to abandon across-the-board cuts on fuel, which benefit wealthier people who consume more, in favour of targeted measures for the groups most exposed to price rises.
The alarm raised by road haulage operators
The end of the subsidies has triggered a backlash from the logistics sector. Assotir has issued a "cry for help", highlighting the dramatic situation facing businesses.
"Road haulage is going through a dramatic time and if it does not come to a halt in protest, it will stop because of the cost of diesel", said Assotir president Anna Vita Manigrasso.
The association’s secretary-general, Claudio Donati, has not ruled out the calling of a sector-wide strike.
"It is a last-resort weapon because it means bringing the country to a standstill. We would like to avoid it, but in the absence of answers the government will have to reckon with us", he said.
The response from government and private operators
In an effort to contain the impact of the international scenario, the Minister for Business and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, and the Mase minister, Gilberto Pichetto, have summoned the main refining operators to Palazzo Piacentini on Thursday, including Eni, IP, Q8, Saras and Isab, to consider increasing domestic production.
At the same time, the private sector has made its first moves. Eni introduced a price cap on 28 September, of €2.19 per litre for diesel and €1.99 for petrol, for 30 days across the Enilive network.
Similar initiatives to cap prices or apply modular discounts have also been launched by IP and Q8, covering more than 11,000 service stations overall, over half of the national network.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has expressed satisfaction with the response from the oil groups and thanked "all those who are making an effort at a difficult time".
The overall picture remains uncertain, weighed down by fears voiced in Brussels of a "difficult winter" linked to energy costs, which are pushing the European Union to consider postponing until 2028 the methane leak rules on energy imports.
