Six EU countries urge windfall tax on energy firms

Frankfurt: Six EU countries are stepping up calls for a bloc-wide windfall tax on oil companies as profits soar due to the Middle East war, according to a letter seen by AFP Saturday.

The finance ministers of Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland and Portugal, along with Spain's economy minister, sent the joint letter to Ireland's finance minister.

Ireland currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, and the ministers urged the issue of a levy be put on the agenda at a meeting of the bloc's finance chiefs in Dublin next month.


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"Oil companies are enjoying overall profitability and margins on refined products that exceed the rise in crude oil prices," it read.

"We are experiencing one of the biggest supply shocks in decades, and all over the world there is growing discontent about the rise in the cost of living."

They called for discussions on an "EU-wide framework to tax windfall profits," which would take into account lessons from when a similar measure was introduced in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil has repeatedly stressed that energy companies must not "rip off" consumers during the current crisis, a ministry source told AFP.

"Excessive crisis profits must be returned to consumers," said the source.

Several of the countries had already called for a levy to be imposed on oil firm profits earlier this year.

Energy firms have seen their earnings soar since the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran in February, resulting in constricted traffic through tthe key transit route the Strait of Hormuz.

The EU has so far not indicated it intends to impose a levy on oil companies, however.

There are also divisions within the German government over the issue.

While Klingbeil of the centre-left SPD, the junior partners in the ruling coalition, backs a levy, the centre-right CDU party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz is against it.