(Finance) – Il Council of State rejects billboards with average fuel prices which petrol stations have been obliged to display since last August. In sentence 1806 published today, the Council of State accepts the appeal brought by the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy, but as a result, in partial reform of the appealed sentence and for different reasons, cancels thearticle 7 of the Mimit decree of 31 March 2023, which establishes the characteristics and methods of display of the billboards containing the average prices. The annulment of only article 7 of the decree was ordered in the part in which it provides for the daily frequency of the obligation to display the sign with the average fuel prices, as this frequency “is not provided for by law”. Mimit sources let it be known that the offices are already taking steps to do so reformulation of article 7 in order to provide a different cadence.
There requirement to update average prices daily “appears to be manifestly unreasonable and disproportionate”, write the administrative judges. “On the one hand, it is necessary to make information available to the consumer in the individual sales points, in a much more complete form given that it is also possible to know which distributor applies the lowest prices in the reference area, by connecting to the Ministry website , or – we read in the sentence – by downloading apps; On the other hand, the related information costs are passed on solely to the distributors, imposing unreasonable and disproportionate burdens on them compared to the limited usefulness that the information relating to the average price, considered in itself, may have. For this reason, article 7 of the ministerial decree of 31 March 2023 is illegitimate and must be annulled”, explains the Council of State. The ministry “when reissuing the power – conclude the judges – will have to evaluate the most suitable measures to implement the provisions of the law decree without burdening the distributors with excessive and improper burdens compared to the actual usefulness of making the price known to the individual distributor regional average”.
“No harm to consumers. The introduction of the average price did not influence the price trend in any way, which followed the same old dynamics, starting with the double speed: immediate increases as soon as increases in international prices and reductions at a snail’s pace otherwise” he says Massimiliano Dona, president of the National Consumers Union, commenting on the decision of the Council of State to reject the billboards with the average price of fuel. “Consumer information is useful when it is perfect, not when it is distorted and wrong, such as being content to go and fill up from anyone whose price is lower than the regional average instead of from those who offer the lowest prices and it is less expensive than all the others – continues Dona –. Instead, we ask ourselves where thefuel app foreseen by the legislative decree of 14 January 2023, n. 5, which would educate motorists to fill up at the least expensive petrol station in the area. More than a year after its prediction, it disappeared from the radar. That would be useful.”
Also according to the Codacons the Council of State’s stop to the decree on cartels with average fuel prices “will not have any effects on consumers” because – explains the association – “the measure, despite guaranteeing greater transparency to citizens, did not produce the desired effects on the containment of price lists at the pump”. “We had immediately highlighted how cartels with average petrol prices would not have had any consequences in terms of reducing prices at the pump. This obviously does not mean that the government is not right to intervene on the fuel front, but it must do so both with more incisive measures capable of protecting consumers from speculation, both by reducing the taxation in force on petrol and diesel – states the president of Codacons Carlo Rienzi –. In particular, the executive, especially in view of the holidays and the exodus linked to the holidays, must absolutely study a measure that blocks the speculative increases in fuel prices that regularly occur when Italians leave. We then need a truly effective tool to automatically reduce the burden of VAT and excise duties when the industrial price of petrol and diesel rises, to avoid another form of speculation, that of the State increasing its revenue thanks to the increases in fuel prices”.
After the ruling of the Council of State which cancels the obligation to display average prices for petrol stations, “it is necessary to put the real issues connected to fuel price increases back at the center of attention” states the president of Assoutenti Gabriele Melluso. “It’s necessary – he explains Melluso – intervene to make excise duties linked to the price of fuel mobile, with the aim of preventing a maximum price threshold from being exceeded, and incentivising informed consumer choice through a official app which indicates in real time the operators who offer the cheapest petrol and diesel prices in the area. Finally, we ask for the testing, through the state-controlled company, of a ‘tricolor fuel’ which could be the driving force behind the general decline in prices at the pump”.
“It is a victory for reason which did not allow itself to be bent by partisan interests and did not lend itself to being exchanged with acquiescence or (more or less) preferential relationships – the two rejoice federations of fuel plant managers Fegica and Figisc –. It is a victory for every single Manager, especially those who have suffered the shame of harassment or fines for being 15 minutes late, who, through the representative organizations, believed that obtaining reason was possible (and not impossible). Now the government and, above all, Minister Urso (and his legislative office) must take note of the new reality designed by the provision of the Council of State and proceed accordingly. Perhaps addressing dialectically and without forcing, with the Category representatives, the issues that have been brought to their attention several times””.
(Photo: David ROUMANET / Pixabay)