The government will extend the discount on diesel excise duty once again

On the eve of the deadline, the government held a video conference. Giorgia Meloni, Deputy Prime Ministers Antonio Tajani and Matteo Salvini, the leader of Noi Moderati Maurizio Lupi and the Minister for the Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti took stock of the high fuel prices. The decision: tomorrow, a new Cabinet meeting is expected to extend the measures already in force by a few days, to buy the time needed to finalise a more targeted measure. The measure due to expire tomorrow will therefore be a technical extension. 

The stated aim is to focus support on the most vulnerable income groups, thereby making the support more targeted. So far, the scheme has been across-the-board: 17 cents per litre on diesel, comprising 14 cents in excise duty and 3 cents in VAT, introduced by the decree at the end of July, extended by the Council of Ministers on 4 August until the 25th, with 245 million scraped from the ministries’ budgets – “We’ve cut some of the ministries’ expenditure; they weren’t very happy,” Giorgetti had admitted – and extended until the 26th by the decree signed on 20 August, which recoups the extra VAT revenue through the mechanism of variable excise duties. The bill is mounting: around ten million a day, with a total of over two billion spent from March to date.

Meanwhile, prices continue to rise. According to the Mimit Observatory, petrol is currently selling at 2.015 euros per litre and diesel at 2.136 on the motorway network. Codacons reports peaks of over 3.1 euros for diesel sold at service stations on the A22. Brent crude remains above $90 a barrel, driven by tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, and the supply chain passes on the cost downstream with its usual asymmetry: very quickly when crude oil prices rise, very slowly when they fall. 

The opposition is hammering home the point about funding. “Enough with stopgap solutions,” said Elly Schlein yesterday, calling for a tax on energy companies’ windfall profits. The government, meanwhile, is taking a few more days to decide.