The shared hope in Sardinia is that the excise duty cut will curb the crazy price hike for diesel , which yesterday reached an average price of €2,192 per liter at self-service stations on the island , the sixth highest in Italy. Petrol, on the other hand, was at €1,990 . If there are no further adjustments—as happened last April— the 17-cent cut requested by the government would bring diesel (for self-service stations) back below the famous psychological threshold of €2 , mitigating the damage caused by a month of constant price increases.

Gas station attendants have had to adjust their prices practically every day this month. "At my station," confirms Tore Garau, regional representative for Figisc Confcommercio and manager of a service station in Sant'Antioco , "since the 19th alone, diesel has increased in price by 14 cents per liter, and gasoline by 3." In this regard, Sardinia is closely following the national trend: on July 1st, gasoline and diesel were practically tied in Italy (1.806 on average for the former, 1.884 for the latter), then diesel began to soar, reaching a national average of 2.038 euros/liter yesterday, while unleaded fuel is "only" at 1.979. This is an increasingly widening gap, which the government has chosen to narrow.

In the end, however, consumers pay the bill.

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