All good things come to an end and on Thursday (September 1) three months after the German government offered nearly free monthly rail travel and reductions on petrol to help the public shoulder soaring power and
heating costs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, cheap travel ended again.
Under the government deal to respond to ballooning energy costs that are squeezing households and companies the price of public transport tickets was slashed to 9 euros a month for three months and the tax on fuel was reduced to the European minimum rate for three months.
At a petrol station in Bonn the price of Super E10 rose overnight from 1.78 to 2.10 euros while the price of diesel rose from 2.04 to 2.18 euros.
At another station in Frankfurt, the price was 2.25 euros for a litre of diesel.
In Berlin, Daniel Jandar said it was a blow and was just another expense.
“It’s not good, it’s bad news for the people who need to drive and need to drive to work. It isn’t good news…now it is just really expensive and everything is expensive, not just petrol,” he said.
With the end of the fuel discount in September, consumers will have to fill up again without benefiting from the reduction in the energy tax.
It is not yet certain how the end of the rebate will affect petrol prices in the long-term, as some petrol stations had stocked up on cheap petrol in advance, according to media reports.
Although the fuel rebate had led to customers paying lower prices for fuel, the tax cut was not been fully passed on to consumers, according to the German Motoring Association.
In a Forsa survey for German broadcasters RTL and ntv, 71% of German citizens were in favour of lowering taxes on petrol and diesel after the end of the fuel rebate at the end of August.
(Reuters)
