The entire market is calling for the government to lift the cap on profit from fuel sales, sounding the alarm about the effects on competition and the increase in delinquency, with the consumer himself as the victim at the end of the day.
Although much has changed in the fuel market since 2021, when the cap on the gross profit margin of gasoline stations and trading companies in the sector was implemented, due to the health and then the energy crisis, a measure that other countries also implemented during the same period but have since withdrawn, in Greece it remains in force through successive extensions.
The latest extension announced a few days ago by the Ministry of Development shocked the market, which is pressured, in addition to increased operating costs, by unfair competition from delinquent gas stations.
The first reaction came from the trading companies through their association (SEEPE). The government’s decision to extend the ceiling hurts legal businesses, forcing them to either close or concede their stations to the rings of offenders, SEEPE states in its relevant announcement.
It also recalls that it has long sounded the alarm to the government, demonstrating in a documented and thorough manner that “the ceiling functions as oxygen for delinquency, without any real benefit for the consumer.”
Reactions from the gas station sector followed, in the same direction. “The current government decision condemns legal businesses in the gas station sector to closure or concession of their stations to the networks of offenders. The ceiling measure deprives legitimate businesses of the ability to survive, while on the contrary it strengthens delinquency, since the income of this portion of delinquent gas station owners arises from other sources and not from the legal profit margin,” states the Federation of Gasoline Dealers of Greece (OBE).
Today, almost 20% to 30% of the volume of fuel sold in Attica and Thessaloniki, as we have repeatedly emphasized, is sold by delinquent gas stations, robbing the consumer at the pump, which was confirmed in many cases by recent inspections by the competent services, notes OBE.
“The strangulation of the already small profitability of legal gas stations is one of the reasons for the increase in delinquency in fuel distribution, given that threatened by bankruptcy, some fuel station owners either sold their enterprise to strangers or turned to other, illegal activities,” says the Thessaloniki Gas Station Owners’ Association.
The Panhellenic Federation of Gas Station Owners and Fuel Merchants (POPEK) calls on the government to justify, so that the consumer can finally be informed with specific numbers and data, when there were phenomena of speculation in the retail fuel market, as well as what they are. “The only speculation that exists is the depreciative speculation that results, according to published studies, from criminality,” the federation notes and concludes: “The question is: Are we looking for cheap but illegal fuels or legal ones with a reasonable profit that free trade is entitled to?”
