Tajani rules out windfall tax and proposes an agreed contribution
At the Rimini Meeting, the Deputy Prime Minister rejects the hypothesis revived by the Pd and points to an agreement with energy companies as an alternative. Meanwhile, the diesel excise duty cut remains extended by ten days.
The 2027 budget law does not yet have a text, but it already has a point of friction: who pays for the rise in energy costs. At the Rimini Meeting, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani stated that he is opposed to any hypothesis of a windfall profits tax in the next budget law, indicating as an alternative a contribution agreed with companies in the sector, on the model of the agreements already reached with banks and insurance companies.
The limits regarding the source of these statements must be noted immediately: the news currently comes from a single origin (the Italpress agency, picked up by Bologna 2000, by Stampa Parlamento and by Vetrina TV); no independent confirmation available. The three outlets report the same agency text, not three separate accounts.
The formula and its boundary
The distinction Tajani proposes is between a levy imposed by law and a negotiated contribution. He rejected the first with a political formula: “I don’t want to hear the word windfall profit, it sounds a lot like the Soviet Union”. The second remains without figures: the reported statements indicate neither the pool of companies involved nor the order of magnitude of the contribution, nor the legislative vehicle through which it would be introduced.
In the same address the Deputy Prime Minister stated that the 14 billion euros obtained through the budget deviation cannot be allocated to the excise duty cut, and that a structural intervention on energy costs is needed instead. He linked the rise in oil, gas and fertilizer prices to the ongoing wars and to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. On the opposite front, Democratic Party secretary Elly Schlein argued that it is time to tax windfall profits: the two positions, according to the agency report, were expressed in parallel, without direct confrontation.
The context: ten days of extension
The discussion is taking place while the government patches the same matter with short-term measures. The Council of Ministers no. 186, convened on Wednesday, August 26 at 6pm at Palazzo Chigi, had on its agenda a draft decree law on urgent provisions concerning oil prices and one on the operational continuity of plants of national strategic interest. According to Euronews Italia the meeting lasted about fifteen minutes and extended until September 5 the 17-cent-per-liter cut on diesel.
The immediate precedent gives a sense of the costs involved. On August 4 the government had approved decree law no. 139, which reduced the excise duty from August 7 to 24, bringing the diesel rate to 532.90 euros per thousand liters: a cost quantified at 190.2 million euros for 2026, to which 42.1 million euros for the road haulage tax credit were added, as reported by S&H Magazine citing an Adnkronos dispatch.
| Measure | Period | Declared cost |
|---|---|---|
| Decree law no. 139 of August 4 | August 7-24 | 190.2 mln (2026) + 42.1 mln road haulage |
| Extension of August 26 | until September 5 | not disclosed in available sources |
What is missing
The quantification of the extension approved on Wednesday is not available, nor is the published text of the decree. On the agreed contribution hypothesized by Tajani no documents exist: it is a political position expressed in a public address, not an articulated proposal. And on the “structural” intervention announced, no instruments, timeframes or funding are indicated.
The first verifiable milestone is the September 5 deadline: from that date, in the absence of a new measure, the diesel rate returns to its ordinary level.
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