The fuel price discounts will continue until 8 July. This was decided by the Council of Ministers meeting in the late morning of today, Monday 2 May, to approve the special decree which extends the cut in excise duties on diesel and petrol for another two months, extending the measure also to methane.
The discount on the price of fuel
The previous interventions to control the price of fuel expired today. The Government has therefore decided to extend them until 8 July. The intervention also includes natural gas for which the excise duty goes to zero and the VAT is reduced to 5%. As regards diesel and petrol, a discount of 30,5 cents per liter at the petrol station is confirmed.
The government-union meeting
In the morning, before the first meeting of the Council of Ministers, the Government met with the leaders of the three main Italian trade unions: Maurizio Landini (Cgil), Luigi Sbarra (Cisl) and Pierpaolo Bombardieri (Uil). Present for the Executive were the Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, the ministers Daniele Franco (Economy), Andrea Orlando (Labour), Giancarlo Giorgetti (Economic Development) and the undersecretary to the Prime Minister Roberto Garofoli.
“The government has repeated to us that for now the reasoning they are making is on a level of intervention between 6 and 7 billion, we told them that we consider the figure insufficient. Now is the time for a deviation", Landini said at the end of the meeting, while arguing that "the government agrees that the priority is to protect the purchasing power of wages and pensions" but on this "we did not have the contents of the provision" he is working on, "for which our judgment remains suspended".
The general secretary of the Cisl, Luigi Sbarra, instead explained that "the government has anticipated that a law of 6-7 billion is being studied, arriving in the next few hours to support families and businesses and deal with this difficult situation". Sbarra also underlined that it is "an important but not sufficient allocation". To recover other resources, according to the CISL, it would be necessary to act for "a further taxation of the extra profits of the multinationals, the reinvestment of the extra VAT revenue and the possibility of a budget deviation", he added.
Finally, the secretary general of Uil, Pierpaolo Bombardieri, claimed that he had reiterated the need to "intervene on wages, work and pensions and energy costs". “The government has accepted our requests and shares them. In the decree that he is preparing to make, he will take into account our proposals and requests. We will see the choices he will make”, concluded Bombardieri.
New cdm in the afternoon
In the afternoon, a second council of ministers is scheduled to examine a further decree which establishes measures aimed at helping businesses and families dealing with the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
