Six European Union countries want all 27 member states to discuss the possibility of taxing extraordinary profits made by oil companies. Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland and Austria have called on Ireland, which currently holds the presidency of the Council of the EU, to add the issue to the agenda of the EU finance ministers’ meeting in Dublin on September 18 and 19. Reuters reported the development.
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Countries Are Calling for a Common European Approach
The finance ministers of the six countries warned that Europe is facing one of the biggest supply shocks of the past decade, while pressure on household living costs continues to rise. According to them, measures adopted by governments so far have failed to deliver a lasting reduction or stabilization of prices for businesses and households. They are therefore calling for a coordinated approach that would ensure companies benefiting from the crisis contribute to easing the burden of high prices.
Since the end of February, when the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran, oil prices have risen by around 25 percent, according to the article. Some petroleum products have become even more expensive. Diesel prices in Europe have increased by more than 70 percent since the conflict began, while gasoline prices have risen by roughly 20 percent.
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The EU Could Build on Its 2022 Emergency Measures
The ministers are proposing that the European Union create an EU-wide framework for taxing windfall profits, drawing on the experience of the 2022 energy crisis. They also want the bloc to examine in greater detail whether profits generated abroad by multinational oil companies could be included in any future measure. In addition, they are calling for the rapid publication of the results of a European investigation into refinery margins to determine whether companies are using the current rise in energy prices to generate excessive profits.
The European Union already introduced emergency measures in 2022 in response to the energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These included extraordinary taxation of profits made by companies operating in the oil, gas, coal and refining sectors. Member states either introduced a windfall tax directly or created equivalent national measures. The Czech Republic also adopted such a policy, imposing extraordinary taxes on energy and petrochemical companies as well as banks.
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Source: ČTK
