ROME – A week after the obligation to display the average price tag came into effect, fuel costs have increased. The balance is drawn up by Fegica, one of the main operator associations, which calculates how since the beginning of the month the price of diesel has increased by 0.041 euros per liter on the normal network and by 0.036 euros on the motorway network, while petrol has increased by 0.017 euros per liter on both routes. “When a good day starts in the morning, there is a risk that the average price cartel will not be the panacea for all ills announced by Minister Urso,” explains Roberto Di Vincenzo, President of Fegica.
The fear that the obligation to report the cartel with the average price could have the opposite effect to that sought by the government (i.e. fuel prices) was also expressed during the parliamentary hearing by the President of the Cartel Office, Roberto Rustichelli, who had stated that in his opinion According to him, there is no “need to introduce a mechanism for calculating and disseminating average benchmarks” because “consumers seem concerned about the potential risk of a reduction in competitive momentum.”
Codacons had also highlighted the slight increase in fuel prices in previous days, showing that “the measures envisaged by the government alone are not enough to lower price lists at the pump and counter speculation” and that therefore “the It is absolute inappropriate that Minister Urso overestimates the measure that envisages the installation of medium-sized signs.”
While the association of service station workers belonging to Confesercenti, Faib, had denounced the “chaos” in the first hours after the measure came into force, since in August a large part of the staff of the oil companies in crisis was on vacation and therefore there are objective difficulties in sending the signs with the average prices, which make the day-to-day work of managers even more difficult than expected.
