The confusion that has surrounded the first days of application of the discount of 20 cents per liter of gasoline It is the result of poor planning and poor execution of this measure announced by the Government last Monday and which was to come into force four days later. The fuel discount is the star initiative of the macro-decree to deal with the economic effects of the war in Ukraine, which, although late, was well received because not only carriers would benefit from it, but all consumers.
However, it soon became clear that the measure lacked wickers. According to the regulations, of the 20 cents discount, 15 correspond to the State and the remaining 5 are assumed by the gas stations, except the small ones (without refining capacity and that do not reach a turnover of 750 million euros), to which those 5 cents will be returned to them later.
Herein lies the main problem: the smaller gas stations complain, since they have to anticipate the discount to the customer and then request a refund from the Treasury. Namely, previously assume a cost with which they did not count and that they denounce that they will not be able to face. Their weak position in the market, they lament, could lead them to close. The Ministry of Finance has announced that it will grant advances to service stations with liquidity problems starting this week. Ultimately, one bureaucratic tangle which, from the outset, arouses mistrust, especially considering that the measure has come into force without even being available, at the Tax Agency’s electronic headquarters, the form to request the monthly refund of the rebates applied. The memory of the complications that thousands of workers suffered during the first year of the pandemic to collect you are from covid it is too recent to ignore the problems that administrative ineffectiveness can cause.
There are doubts even in the very design of the plan. Repsol and Cepsa interpret that the Treasury will bear the cost of 20 cents also for them, and the ministry headed by María Jesús Montero has not clarified whether its estimate of the cost of 1,423 million for the public budget includes assuming the 20 cents at the gas stations of the large groups. Pretend it will work out “case by case” when the quarterly settlement of discounts is made is nonsense.
The Government spent weeks without reacting while energy prices climbed unchecked and the country was experiencing a monumental transport crisis. Other European countries announced urgent measures while Spain awaited the Brussels summit. In the end, a hastily improvised decree arrived.