dear petrol, the most expensive in Europe also due to the war in Ethiopia. What does that have to do with anything? It is a completely local "anomaly", according to which excise duties are charged to fuel for the most disparate reasons, and then no one cancels them anymore. The deputy Claudio Barbaro (Fli) draws up a meticulous list, and addressing the minister Passera calls for a tax exemption accompanied by an "incisive" liberalization.
The current price of our petrol is subject to excise duties equal to 52% of the cost of the fuel, taxes applied for reasons which have since ceased, as deputy Barbaro points out in detail. We start from the now distant 1935, when petrol was burdened with 1,9 lire (equal to 0,001 euro) for the war in Ethiopia. And then in '56 with 14 lire (0,007 euro) for the Suez crisis; in '63 10 lire (0,005 euro) for the Vajont disaster; in '66 another 10 lire (0,005) for the flooding of Florence; in '68 another 10 lire (0,005 euro) for the Belice earthquake; in '76 99 lire (0,051 euro) for the Friuli earthquake; in 1980 75 lire (0,039 euro) for the earthquake in Irpinia; in 83 no less than 205 lire (0,106 euros) for the mission in Lebanon; in 1996 22 lire (0,011 euro) for the mission in Bosnia; €0,020 in 2004 for the renewal of the contract for the road and tram drivers; 0,005 euros in 2005 for the purchase of ecological buses. And this year alone 0,020 euros for the single fund for entertainment, another 0,040 for the immigrant emergency due to the Libyan crisis and a further 0,0089 for the floods in Liguria and Tuscany.
Hence a double solicitation. The first: provide for a tax exemption of the price of petrol, "that is – explains Barbaro – the freezing of VAT and the cancellation of outdated excise duties, so as to realign fuel prices in Italy to the European average value". The second: incisive measures in the liberalization of fuels "to promote a significant and real reduction in their price and make a market that still today has highly oligopolistic aspects competitive".
