«Sooner or later we will cut excise duties, now we have come to terms with reality»- Corriere.it

After the halt to the cut in excise duties on fuel, the price of petrol has returned to exceeding the threshold of 2 euros, while that of diesel is even reaching the threshold of 2.50 euros per litre. In addition to the strong discontent among citizens and businesses, this consequence also triggered a political clash between the Brothers of Italy and Forza Italia.
Giorgia Meloni’s party strongly defends the stop decided by the government, to divert those resources to contain, for example, the cost of bills and promote growth, while Silvio Berlusconi’s party asks to review the strategy.

An incandescent situation, to such an extent that this morning the premier took the field directly with a video on social networks “to clarify”. «To cut excise duties, we could not have increased the health fund, the audience of families to calm domestic bills, for SME credits: all these measures would have been canceled to provide for the cut in excise duties », the leader rattles off.

A matter of accounts, then, because the blanket is too short. Maintaining the excise duty freeze cost around 1.5 billion a month. And these resources, in the maneuver just approved, have been diverted elsewhere. The future? «I am very hopeful of the possibility that sooner or later we will be able to cut excise duties on petrol, a structural and not a temporary cut – Meloni underlines in his column “Giorgia’s notes” -. But this requires a different situation and that is to restart economic growth, now let’s deal with reality. To do some things you need resources and to find them you need growth».

The Prime Minister says she is “convinced” of the choices “I have made, because I think it made more sense to help those with low wages, those without a job, those who are unable to do the shopping rather than using the resources to allow let’s say me, I’m talking about me, who in any case have a respectable salary to pay less for petrol. This is a government that has to make choices.” Also because the cut in excise duties, numbers in hand, would have led to “too many renunciations in maneuver” for an amount of at least 10 billion lire in 2023.

Then the leader of the Brothers of Italy lists the numbers: «The average price of the excise cut in the previous government was 1,885 euros, on 27 June it was 2,073 euros, on 1 August 1,877. Then I can also understand that the price is now high but where was the press as the price of petrol was at 2,077 euros. I don’t remember the campaigns of these days in previous years. Then there are the distortions and we need to intervene ». Then: «Most of the gas station attendants are honest and responsible and we have to intervene to protect them. In the Council of Ministers we have decided to strengthen the sanctioning rules for those who fail to comply with the communications required by law and we have established that every petrol station should display the average daily price”.