Fuel prices are set to decrease at the beginning of next week. The price of diesel is expected to drop by 2.5 cents, while gasoline is anticipated to fall by 2 cents, predicts the Automóvel Club de Portugal (ACP) this Friday.
“If the forecasts for the week of December 8 to 14 are confirmed, the average price of regular diesel will settle at 1.548 euros, and regular gasoline 95 will decrease to 1.676 euros“, ACP reports.
However, “these forecasts are based on the assumption of maintaining the government’s extraordinary fiscal reduction measures to mitigate the price increase”.
“The measures in effect include compensating for additional VAT revenue and reducing the Tax on Petroleum Products (ISP), which the Government has already begun reversing, aiming to end next year”, ACP notes.
Reduction of ISP Discount? “We Did Not Cause an Increase in the Final Price”
Prime Minister Luís Montenegro denied that reducing the discount on the Tax on Petroleum Products (ISP) will result in a rise in fuel prices for consumers.
“We did not cause any increase in the final consumer price. We are correcting a discount that needed to be corrected, without impacting the final price to the consumer”, stated the head of Government in response to the Chega leader during the biweekly debate in the Assembly of the Republic last week.
Luís Montenegro mentioned that the Government decided, “facing a very significant drop in gasoline and diesel prices, to capitalize on it, not reflecting it in the final price, to recover a discount that was in effect”.
The Prime Minister stated that gasoline and diesel are now about 20 cents cheaper per liter than they were on March 01, 2022.
During his speech, the Chega president noted that the Government claimed that the increase in ISP revenue forecasted in the State Budget for 2026 was due to “an estimate that the Portuguese will have more money and therefore will spend more fuel on cars”.
“In the week when forecasts pointed to a rare expected drop in gasoline prices, the Government took the first step to end the ISP discount”, with the “partial reversal of measures adopted three years ago”, criticized André Ventura.
The Chega deputy pointed out that during the State Budget discussion, he warned that the Government was “deceiving” the Portuguese.
“We said at the time that they were deceiving us and that it was not true because they were going to end the discount that allowed people to pay less for fuel. Today we know the truth, the truth is that the Government wanted, accepted, and tolerated increasing the pressure on fuel prices”, he defended, anticipating that “the Portuguese will pay more” to fill their tanks.
Through an ordinance published in the Diário da República on November 28, the PSD/CDS-PP Government reduced the ISP discount applicable to unleaded gasoline and road diesel, canceling part of the reduction in fuel prices.
According to this ordinance, effective on December 01, the ISP rate applicable, in mainland Portugal, to gasoline with a lead content of 0.013 grams per liter or less increased from 481.26 euros to 497.52 euros per 1,000 liters, while the ISP rate applicable to diesel rose from 337.21 euros to 361.60 euros per 1,000 liters.
According to estimates by the Automóvel Club de Portugal (ACP), these amounts represent an effective tax increase per liter of about 1.6 cents for gasoline and more than two cents for diesel.
[Updated at 09:37]
