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HIGHER FUEL COSTS PROTESTS * WORLDWIDE
* Europe - Protests Over Soaring Fuel Costs Spread In
New York,NY,USA -Dow Jones Newswires, by Emma Charlton & Christopher Emsden -May 21 2008: -- ... The protests create seismic conflicts for European policymakers who have used every tool available to governments - taxes, congestion charges, and public transport incentives - and even bicycle rentals - to reduce their countries' reliance on cars and trucks to protect the environment... France's politically powerful fishing unions want the government to better a $480 million rescue plan aimed at offsetting a doubling in the cost of diesel fuel since November. The fishing fleet also has been blockading French ports and oil terminals on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean coasts for more than a week... The Paris clashes came as Brent crude oil futures for July delivery, the benchmark product for Europe, jumped more than $1.00 Wednesday to hit an all-time high of $129.70, driven up by apparently robust demand and evident reluctance among oil producers to increase output... European governments are under pressure to cut excise taxes on fuel to provide relief. Rising oil and gas prices already pose an inflation conundrum for central banks and impose higher costs for businesses and commuters that could put economic growth at risk. Now fuel prices risk triggering strikes and roadblocks that could wreak havoc in Europe's largely fragmented transport industry... Governments have so far been reluctant to cut these taxes, seeking instead to shift the blame on oil producers... Germany's some analysts lobby group for car drivers, say lower fuel taxes would only magnify demand... Enrico D'Elia, a senior economist at Italian think-tank ISAE noted, excise taxes are levied on volume, not price, and so actually dampen price volatility... Italy's new industry minister, Claudio Scajola, called the price Italians pay for fuel "intolerable"... He met with oil-industry leaders last Friday and warned he might take "structural measures" if the companies didn't bring their prices more in line with the rest of Europe... Roman Smidbersky, head of sales at the Czech Republic's largest trucking and logistics operator, CS Cargo AS, estimated that logistics companies will have to lift their rates by as much as 10% just to keep their trucks on the road... In Bulgaria, around 1,000 truckers besieged roads leading into Sofia earlier this week to protest the rise in diesel prices. They are particularly incensed that the price of diesel is now above that of regular gasoline, and note excises taxes on diesel have been hiked fourfold in only a few years. Those tax hikes were largely designed to comply with European Union rules and eliminate previous subsidy schemes... Up to a thousand British truckers coordinated by protest group TransAction 2007 plan to drive their rigs into London next Tuesday, snarling traffic as they deliver demands for relief on fuel taxes to Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Downing Street... Brown, the U.K. prime minister, hardened his anti-OPEC rhetoric this week, denouncing the cartel as a "scandal" and calling on the E.U. and G8 to break down its control...
* UK - No backing for protesters
London,UK -Road Transport/Motor Transport, by Dominic Perry -21 May 2008: -- The RHA and FTA insist they will not lead next Tuesday's Park Lane fuel protest despite overwhelming support for such a move in last week's MT poll... But Roger King, RHA chief executive, insists that another Park Lane protest does not fit in with the association's strategy. Instead it is focusing on a mass lobby of parliament "on a date yet to be announced". This is in response to an amendment to the Finance Bill proposed by the SNP, which would introduce a fuel duty regulator... Mike Presneill, co-organiser of TransAction, says that he has been promised support by a large number of major haulage firms. He adds: "People are telling us that they are ashamed of the RHA because it is not heading the protest."...
* UK - Scots hauliers plan their own demonstration
London,UK -Road Transport/Motor Transport,by Laura Hailstone -21 May 2008: -- A group of Scottish hauliers are planning to hold their own fuel protest next week in solidarity with the plan-ned protest by TransAction in London. Cameron Young, managing director of Cameron Young Transport, says: "I'll be sending a truck down to London to support TransAction's protest, but myself and several other hauliers also want to stage something up here on the same day."... This time last year Young ran around 25 trucks, but over the past couple of months has been gradually downsizing his fleet due to escalating fuel prices. "I've just sold another nine vehicles, so I'm down to 12. If the government does something soon about diesel prices, then I just might survive."...
Labels: truckers' protest worldwide
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