The government will monitor fuel prices and act if necessary

This Saturday the Government guaranteed it would keep an eye on fuel prices given recent increases, promising a “willingness to act to protect families” if it is “absolutely necessary”.

“We are assessing and must evaluate what will happen in terms of price dynamics, whether we are at an exclusively temporary peak that then returns or not,” Finance Minister Fernando Medina told reporters at the end of the Portuguese people. meeting of EU finance ministers, which will take place this Saturday in Santiago de Compostela as part of the Spanish Presidency of the EU.

The government official stressed that the Portuguese executive “has already demonstrated its ability and willingness to act to protect families when it becomes absolutely necessary.”

Asked if the government was considering taking action now, Fernando Medina said: “We will, if necessary, [mas] Now we need to understand whether this is the dynamics of the peak (…) and the markets (…) indicate a significant fall in prices soon.”

“When prices rose sharply, the government took a set of measures, in particular to abolish the carbon tax, but it was always assumed that this was a temporary measure,” he recalled.

In addition, Fernando Medina continued, “when prices began to rise more significantly in recent weeks, the process of increasing the carbon tax was interrupted and therefore there is no increase in the tax burden.”

The position comes after the government decided in early September to keep petroleum tax rebates of 13.1 cents per liter on diesel and 15.3 cents on petrol unchanged this month, and to pause the update to the carbon emissions standard.

Among the current measures are a discount on ISP, equivalent to a reduction in the VAT rate from 23% to 13%, as well as compensation through a tax on petroleum products for additional VAT revenues arising from an increase in the amount of VAT. fuel price.