Italy and 4 other countries: ‘We need an EU tax on extra profits against high oil prices’

Tl;dr

The governments of 5 European states (NB: politically in difficulty, perhaps the one with the least problems is the Italian one, which is saying something) are asking for this “”tax on extra profits””, but no one has understood what it is and how it is calculated. So much so that they themselves delegate the entire concrete/regulatory part to Europe (yes, the same Europe blamed by the same governments for regulating everything, now they are asking them to make another regulation):

The initiative, led by the Ministers of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti with colleagues from Spain, Germany, Austria and Portugalaims to obtain a common response from the European Commission to contain the impact of high energy prices on families and businesses.

In the letter, sent to the EU Commissioner for Economy Wopke Hoekstra, the five ask for coordinated EU intervention to tax the windfall profits of energy companieswith the aim of preventing the cost of the crisis from falling entirely on consumers and public budgets. The reference is explicit to the surge in oil prices after the escalation with Iran and to the market distortions generated by geopolitical tensions

Meanwhile, a first critical reaction comes from the Italian oil industry. Unitethe association of petroleum product processing, logistics and distribution companies, claims to have learned about the initiative with "surprise and bewilderment" and warns that "it would be necessary to avoid further elements of instability"not to put "a sector that is working hard to guarantee the security of supplies is in crisis". In the letter to the Commission, the five EU ministers underline how the current phase of "strong volatility in energy markets"fueled by geopolitical tensions, has produced "distorting effects" that they require "immediate intervention at European level".