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Government drops plan to increase excise duty on diesel and petrol

by editor
The prices of petrol and diesel will not be indexed next year.
This was agreed on Friday within the Council of Ministers, with government sources  confirming this to the Belga news agency.

The price of diesel and petrol will not be increased by 1.5 eurocent on 1 January, as originally planned in the coalition agreement. But the Michel government is abandoning this index increase, which will cost the state treasury 90 million euro.

The decision seems to have been prompted by the protest actions of the so called “gilets jaunes”. Earlier this week, the Prime Minister had a meeting with a number of representatives of that movement.

It has been reported in government circles that the non-indexation is not related to demonstrations or demands of the “gilets jaunes”, but rather to bring fuel taxation more in line with the European average. The coalition agreement wanted the indexation of excise duties to take into account the evolution of excise duties in neighbouring countries.

Arthur Rubinstein
 

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