The European Commission should take the initiative to ask Member States to scrap recently introduced fuel tax cuts as they violate basic EU laws. 24 European NGOs are urging this in a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. They also call for a significant tariff on Russian oil imports.

In recent weeks, 14 Member States have reduced taxes on petrol and diesel or introduced other subsidies on these products. This encourages fuel consumption when the opposite should be the case.

Increasing fuel consumption also boosts Russia's revenues, which helps finance its war machine. This runs counter to the EU’s principle of promoting peace. It also conflicts with the EU’s climate protection objectives. It violates EU aims to reduce social inequalities, as tax cuts overwhelmingly subsidise those who have no need of them (the richest 10% of the EU population consume eight times as much fuel as the poorest 10%). Fossil fuel subsidies are a huge distortion of the market, giving an unjustified advantage to some economic actors while putting others at a blatant disadvantage. Moreover, fuel tax subsidies can prolong the agony of businesses that would already be uncompetitive if they had to pay the full price of their activities. This is contrary to EU rules on market competitiveness.

It is not a good financial management of EU money that Member States to use huge amounts of national public money for purposes that are contrary to the purposes for which EU public money is provided (the measures announced by 14 Member States already amount to nearly €9 billion).

While consumers are being informed about reduced petrol and diesel prices at petrol stations, they are either not informed or severely under-informed about the dire consequences of subsidies that allow reduced prices. This is a violation of the right to information.

The NGOs are calling on the European Commission to take immediate action to ensure that Member States withdraw the fuel price subsidies recently introduced and do not introduce new ones. This would also ensure that more public money is available to compensate vulnerable households.

The NGOs are also calling for the Commission to take the initiative to impose a tariff on Russian oil imports. EU countries could raise €27 billion this year from a $25 per barrel import duty on Russian oil. The Russian oil industry will have to absorb the extra cost as it has no alternative to selling on the European market in the short term.

András Lukács, President of the Clean Air Action Group said, “While the proposed measures may be unpleasant for many European citizens, it will be much more painful for everyone if the war continues: skyrocketing energy and food prices, and a long-standing economic crisis. More importantly, our inconveniences are nothing compared to the immense suffering of the people in Ukraine.”

It is also necessary for the Member States to launch a broad information campaign without delay on energy saving and the importance of energy efficiency, the huge disadvantages of subsidising fossil fuels, and to ask drivers and companies to use their vehicles only when absolutely necessary until Putin stops his aggression against Ukraine.