With the country firmly snubbing its nose at the government appeal for “a civic attitude” over Portugal’s exorbitant fuel taxes, national tabloid Correio da Manhã estimates that the country is losing as much as a million euros per day as families and transport companies fill up across the border in Spain.
Today (Monday) sees fuel costs rising for the third time this month due to new taxes brought in by the PS government.
Petrol is now 35 cents more expensive than it is in Spain, while diesel is 31 cents more costly.
Announcing “two weeks of mourning”, transport companies are threatening a nationwide “go-slow” if things don’t change.
“We are those that deliver bread, water and fuel every day,” Gustavo Duarte of ANTRAM, the national merchandise transportation association, explained.
“What is happening is an affront to businesses.”
They feel “defrauded”, he added, saying the government has failed to realise goods vehicles are “an important sector for the economy and all Portuguese people”.
If the two weeks of mourning – marked by trucks sporting black banners – do not see some form of relief, truckies will mount a major go-slow which “won’t paralyse” the country, but will nonetheless snarl things up, Duarte warned.
Disgruntled companies are due to meet “behind closed doors” today, as the appeal by economy minister Caldeira Cabral for people to fill up in Portugal, no matter how expensive the fuel has become, has well and truly fallen on deaf ears.
CM explains that every day thousands travel across the border to Spain to fill up tanks and vehicles.
A typical family with two cars can save €1,000 a year, says the paper – adding that at least 37 boroughs housing 450,000 inhabitants lie close enough to Spain to warrant the journey.
Caldeira Cabral’s defence that the Portuguese should have a “civic attitude” and not pay in to Spanish taxes has resulted in multiple calls for his dismissal, and general ridicule.
“If he cannot do the maths, we will give him a calculator,” union chief Márcio Lopes of ANTP, the national transporters association, has retorted.
Elsewhere, international carriers have told CM they have instructions never to fill up in Portugal.
“We have orders to fill up in Spain,” José Arlindo told CM. “We will fill up our tanks once we have left Portugal and then we top them up again before going into France. Since the ISP (fuel tax) increased, it is the only way.”
Indeed, trucking companies that can’t justify a drive over the border could face going out of business altogether, adds the paper.
It just remains to be seen if anything comes of the “two weeks of mourning”.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
