Fuel price demos sweep across Europe

May 30, 2008, 13:23 GMT

Brussels - Protests at the soaring cost of fuel swept across Europe on Friday as fishermen and transport workers demonstrated in cities from Belgium to Bulgaria.

'The majority of the coastline's ability to attract people comes from the fishing industry. We demand that the government does something,' Belgian fishermen's union representative Ivan Victor said at a protest outside the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels.

The Belgian protest brought fishermen from the ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend to the EU's heart, waving 10,000-candlepower distress flares and banners demanding government support.

In Madrid, thousands of fishermen gathered outside the agriculture ministry and began handing out free fish to passersby in protest at the fact that marine fuel prices have risen some 240 per cent since 2004, while fish prices have stayed level.

Fifteen hundred kilometres to the north, in Dublin, Irish fishermen staged a similar demonstration, handing out fish fillets to their countrymen in an effort to put pressure on the government.

Also in Ireland, a group representing private owners of bus companies said it had written to the government, warning that many firms running school routes would have to shut down if fuel prices continued rising, RTE reported.

And in Bulgaria, truck drivers across the country launched protests to demand a reduction in government excise duties on fuel.

The wave of demonstrations comes just three days after British truck drivers descended on London in a convoy to raise awareness of their concerns.

And it comes a week after French fishermen launched blockades of several French ports, demanding immediate government action to cushion their industry against the price of crude oil.

It is set against a background of soaring world prices for crude oil, which has jumped to ever-new highs after breaking through the psychological barrier of 100 dollars per barrel on January 3.

Fuel-intensive industries across Europe are now complaining that their respective governments, which make a considerable revenue from the high excise duties they impose on fuels, are profiting at the expense of the consumer. They demand reductions either in excise duties or in VAT rates.

But officials say that it would be illegal to cut VAT without the agreement of the EU's 27 member states, and unwise to reduce excise, as this could be seen as sending a message to oil producers that they can raise their prices still further without worrying about losing customers.