The decision will be taken at the Council of Ministers on Thursday 30 April. Meloni talks about a possible cut “no longer horizontally” and for a shorter period than the previous ones
May 1st is approaching, the last day on which the decree that cuts excise duties on fuel is effective to relieve consumers from the increases in oil prices resulting from the war in Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The topic will be discussed in the Council of Ministers scheduled for Thursday 30 October. However, at the end of the meeting at Palazzo Chigi on 28 April, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said that the government is evaluating “a further extension” of the excise duty cut, which could be “shorter than the previous ones” and “no longer horizontally: diesel has had a more significant increase than petrol” and therefore the cut “could impact diesel more than petrol, to have a better distributed impact”. Thus the Prime Minister at the press conference. “We follow the negotiating table – he explained – we try to keep ourselves fairly anchored to the progress of the situation but we have not yet defined the precise timing of the weeks to which the extension of the cut will refer”.
“diesel at 2.3 euros per litre”
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The current excise duty cut on unleaded petrol and diesel is 20 cents per liter plus VAT for a total of 24.4 cents per litre. The measure was decided by the government with a decree law dated March 18th which was then extended on April 3rd. The estimated cost to the treasury is around one billion euros. According to Codacons, in the absence of interventions, from 2 May “the average price of diesel will skyrocket to 2.30 euros per liter on the ordinary network, reaching on average 2.36 euros per liter on motorways, 1.98 euros for petrol”. “The proposal to apply diversified excise duty cuts for petrol and diesel – adds the consumers’ association – accepts that already advanced by Codacons in recent weeks, provided however that the discount does not introduce excessive disparities and harm motorists”.
