Diesel price up. Gas next?

The excise on diesel oil goes up to 221 euros/tonne from 187 euros/tonne as of July 1, Finance minister Mihai Tanasescu said. It has to reach 285 euros/tonne in the next three years as negotiated with the European Union. As for the gas excises, Tanasescu says the state budget has seen an improvement in collection for this category. The very low collection in Q1 prompted the Government in late April to decide that the excise on gas would be raised by 40 euros/tonne as of June 15, in case the state budget revenues did not go up and reach the amount scheduled by that time. “As soon as the Government endorsed the measures to fight oil products smuggling, the collection improved a great deal. We’ll consider things after June 10 and, if the trend maintains, we will no longer increase the excises as initially planned,” Tanasescu said. The Cabinet conducted an analysis of the excise collection level three months after the enforcement of Ordinance 3/2003 (January 22) on fuel excises. The normative act stipulated that, in case the collection was below monthly estimates, the excise should be raised by 40 euros as of May 1. Although the analysis showed collection was below the set level, the Government postponed making a decision to rise excises for June 15 and in the meantime took a series of steps to fight illegal trade in counterfeit oil products, in order to boost excise collection. ZF