The Minister of Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, wants Europe to approve a new permanent tax on oil and gas companies, as well as tax premium air travel. This was requested from the European Commissioner for Climate, Wopke Hoekstra, in a letter dated September 2 to which EL MUNDO has had access. The proposal from the head of energy policy comes in the midst of the Pedro Sánchez Government's race to contain the rise in gasoline and diesel prices, and at the threshold of a winter that threatens to skyrocket the bills of all Europeans to unprecedented levels since the Ukraine crisis.
The letter, published this Friday by the Financial Times, is accompanied by a longer political document. In both, Aagesen urges the creation of a reinforced European Climate Resilience Framework, with its own financing mechanisms to face the costs of reconstruction in the face of environmental disasters such as the fires that devastated Spain this summer.
The core of the proposal proposes introducing a permanent tax on the profits of oil and gas companies, which the Government already tried to implement without success at the national level when Teresa Ribera led the ecological ministry.
Unlike then, the Government now proposes what it has called a European Climate Resilience Levy, the revenue from which would not go to the coffers of the Member States, but would become a "new own resource" of the EU. In addition, Aagesen demands new taxes on luxury or premium air transport.
This push from Spain to the European green agenda occurs at a time when the oil companies of the Old Continent have skyrocketed their profits and exponentially widened the margins of their refineries in the heat of the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. But it also contrasts with the efforts that the Government of Pedro Sánchez is carrying out in its own territory to appease a new blow of inflation to the pockets of households and companies, precisely derived from the international escalation of fossil fuels and electricity. This situation, unprecedented since the 2022 Ukraine crisis, is straining the domestic economy.
Record summer at gas stations
The progressive withdrawal of the tax shield that Moncloa activated in March as a result of the Hormuz crisis unleashed this summer the most violent jump in prices recorded in two decades in a summer season. In the case of 95 gasoline, for a driver with an average tank (55 liters) refueling went from costing less than 80 euros before the summer to almost 93 at the beginning of August. The blow was worse for diesel, since filling the tank became more expensive from 82.7 euros to almost 99.
Pushed by July inflation, which rose more than 15% year-on-year in the case of diesel, Moncloa was forced to activate the emergency clause of the package of measures to alleviate the impact of the war in the Middle East. That is, to resume a reduction of 20 cents per liter in the hydrocarbon tax on diesel. This began to be activated on September 1.
With the exception of a few first weeks, between April and May, in which the rise in prices ate up the tax relief, the truth is that the Government's shield has managed to reduce the cost of filling the tank by almost 10 euros compared to before the relief. Of course, refueling is still up to 17 euros more expensive than a year ago, before the war broke out in the Middle East. And the threat of another price crisis is not limited to gas stations.
