Fuel prices continue to break records and, depending on the tax burden, they should remain so. The certainty was given by António Costa, who, in the general policy debate in Parliament, completely ruled out the possibility of a reduction in fuel taxes in the State Budget for 2022.
According to the prime minister, the “tax cost that has risen is what results from the carbon tax, and it works well”, with António Costa defending that “it is necessary once and for all to stop having two speeches (…) cannot say for half a week that there is a climate emergency and in the other half say that they do not want measures to combat the climate emergency”.
Still on the climate emergency, the prime minister said: “The climate emergency is an emergency every day, it requires a carbon tax, this carbon tax will continue to increase and it is a correct policy not to make the slightest contribution to lowering the taxation on carbonized fuels, period”.
This explanation came in response to the CDS-PP deputy, Cecília Meireles, who recalled that a large part of the price of fuel corresponds to taxes. Cecília Meireles criticized the Government for “instead of solving the problem of the lion's margin, which is the State's margin, instead of regulating its margin, it decided that it would regulate the margin of other operators” and questioned whether the executive “is available to reverse the excess for diesel and gasoline”.
Fossil Fuel Subsidies Are Ending
While the government is not willing to lower fuel taxes, it has already promised to continue eliminating fossil fuel subsidies.
The guarantee was given by the prime minister in response to the PAN whose spokesperson, Inês Sousa Real said: “despite the fact that the Government has been reducing exemptions on petroleum products for the production of energy in our country, namely from the coal, exemptions for the production of energy through other fossil energies such as gas are maintained”.
In view of this, António Costa recalled that the Government has "successively been eliminating all subsidization to fossil fuels", promising to remain on this "path".
Still on taxation, the prime minister said it was necessary to "have a smarter taxation from an environmental point of view" and reinforced his confidence that the State Budget for 2022 is "another good opportunity for us to take a step towards having the right incentives in the right direction to decarbonise our economy and our society.”
Source: Diário de Notícias.