Overview
- The Council of Ministers approved the measure late Monday to cut diesel taxes by 17 cents per litre including VAT, effective from the night of 28 July until 6 August and estimated to cost about €125 million.
- The cut is financed with extra VAT receipts, fines from Antitrust and budget items, and the government plans to reassess on 4 August whether to activate accise mobili, the mechanism that uses higher VAT receipts from price spikes to fund excise reductions.
- Early monitoring by the ministry showed almost no immediate relief at the pump, with an average diesel fall of roughly €0.005 per litre and some regions reporting higher prices, a result partly explained by retailers’ slow price updates and inventories bought at earlier, higher rates.
- Opposition parties, consumer groups and international bodies have criticised the blanket cut as regressive and have urged targeted cash support for low‑income households and firms rather than a universal tax cut.
- This intervention follows a series of temporary excise cuts since March that cost about €2 billion overall, and the accise mobili system requires ex‑post accounting of VAT receipts so any larger, automatic relief typically arrives with a time lag.