The Meloni Government is trying to put a stop to the high cost of fuel: on the morning of Friday 3 April 2026, a quick Council of Ministers decided to extend the cut in excise duties on petrol and diesel, which was due to expire on 7 April, with another 500 million euros.
The measure, introduced on March 18, guaranteed a discount of 24.4 cents per litre. Now the new deadline is set for 1 May 2026. The Government thus aims to benefit citizens in view of a series of holidays that include long weekends and trips out of town: Easter, Easter Monday, 25 April and Labor Day.
CDM on excise duty cuts
The CDM started at 9:00 and lasted less than forty minutes. The new fuel decree containing the extension of the excise duty cut until next May 1st has therefore been approved.
This is what the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti commented at the press conference:
We have just approved a law decree with which we extend the reduction of excise duties already in place until May 1st, there is a targeted intervention for agricultural companies to which the tax credit is extended to 20% which was initially foreseen only for fishing companies.
And again:
The decree implements the agreement with the associations reached this week on Transition 5.0 at the Ministry of Business. There is also an intervention on Simest for companies that work on exports.
Petrol and diesel prices
The prices of petrol and diesel bite the wallet: around 1.73 euros per liter for petrol and just over 2 euros for diesel.
As anyone who has been refueling lately knows, a significant portion of the already approved state discount has already been eaten up by price increases. In particular on diesel, where the increase in international prices has almost completely reduced the benefit for motorists. And this is precisely the main reason why the Government wanted the extension.
How much petrol and diesel might cost
The key question is what will happen to fuel prices in the coming weeks.
If the excise duty cut had lapsed, the effect would have been immediate and visible on distributors’ billboards. Petrol would have quickly returned to close to 2 euros per litre, while diesel would have risked exceeding 2.3 euros. In the latter case it would have been a level higher than the peaks recorded in 2022, at the height of the energy crisis.
The Government intended to avoid this scenario, especially due to the knock-on impact on transport and inflation.
With the approval of the CDM cut, prices should remain more contained, but not necessarily stable. Petrol could fluctuate between 1.70 and 1.80 euros per litre, while diesel would remain around 2 euros or slightly above. In other words, the cut would serve more to limit the damage than to reverse the trend.
The variables: war, markets and speculation
The context is not the best: the war in Iran and the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz have pushed oil prices up, with particularly heavy effects on diesel.
It is no coincidence that the Ministry of Infrastructure is also working on other fronts. Among the hypotheses, there is that of introducing an additional discount of 5 cents per liter on the motorway and a new discussion with the oil companies to avoid unjustified increases.
Measures which, if confirmed, could provide a little more relief, especially on busier days such as the Easter weekend.
How much does it cost to intervene on pump prices
However, the extension of the excise duty cut is not a zero-cost option. Extending the measure until the end of April required half a billion euros. We will need to understand which other sectors will be deprived of resources to divert them to cutting excise duties.
The previous excise duty cut, implemented on March 18, cost 527.4 million euros. Resources were found through heavy cuts in numerous sectors: the Ministry of Economy and Finance lost 127.5 million, that of Infrastructure and Transport lost 96.5 and that of Health 86.05. Cuts of between 25 and 30 million were also established for Foreign Affairs, Education, Interior, University and Research, Agriculture and Culture.
