<\/span><\/h2>\nMany drivers are looking to the government in the hope that the \u201cLower Fuel Prices\u201d programme, known by its Polish acronym CPN, will return. However, a repeat of that intervention currently appears unlikely.<\/p>\n
Energy Minister Mi\u0142osz Motyka has confirmed that the ministry is working on contingency plans, but he has also set out a clear condition. For the CPN programme to be reintroduced, the Strait of Hormuz would have to be completely blocked, pushing oil prices back towards the levels recorded in March or April.<\/p>\n
Why is the government so reluctant to reactivate the support scheme? The answer lies in its cost to the state budget. The CPN programme was extremely expensive, costing the government approximately PLN 5 billion.<\/p>\n
At the same time, its effectiveness cannot be denied. The programme helped prevent inflation from inflicting greater damage on consumers, with the annual inflation rate ultimately falling to just 2.5% in June \u2014 exactly in line with the National Bank of Poland\u2019s inflation target.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the restoration of the full 23% VAT rate on fuel at the beginning of July, combined with the current turmoil in the Middle East, will almost certainly worsen the inflation figures. Inflation in July is likely to rise above 3% again.<\/p>\n
This would not necessarily trigger an immediate response from the National Bank of Poland, however, because such a reading would still remain within the permitted fluctuation band around the central bank\u2019s inflation target.<\/p>\n
Instead of introducing another costly subsidy programme, the Ministry of Energy may consider implementing a mechanism that would force petrol stations to change their pricing policies.<\/p>\n
The aim would be to prevent retailers from raising prices immediately in response to movements on global commodity markets while encouraging them to introduce reductions more quickly when international conditions stabilise. Similar solutions have already been introduced in other countries.<\/p>\n
For now, however, such measures remain a prospect for the future. The coming weeks at Polish petrol stations are likely to be dominated by efforts to keep fuel prices below the critical thresholds whose breach would hit the finances of households and businesses alike.<\/p>\n
Author: Micha\u0142 Stajniak, Deputy Director of the Analysis Department at XTB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The past few days at Polish petrol stations have brought a painful confrontation with geopolitical reality. Escalating tensions in the Middle East and reciprocal missile attacks between the United States and Iran have rapidly restored not merely a geopolitical premium to the market, but what analysts describe as a war premium. The effect is already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Fuel prices in Poland are rising again. At many petrol stations, 95-octane petrol has already exceeded PLN 7 per litre as escalating tensions between the United States and Iran add a new war premium to global oil prices.\r\n\r\nBrent crude has approached USD 90 per barrel, while reduced shipping through the Strait of Hormuz continues to raise concerns about energy supplies. Polish drivers are also feeling the effects of the return of the full 23% VAT rate on fuel following the end of the government\u2019s CPN support programme.\r\n\r\nCould petrol and diesel prices rise towards PLN 8 per litre? And what would force the Polish government to intervene again?\r\n\r\nRead the full analysis.\r\n\r\n#Poland #FuelPrices #PetrolPrices #OilPrices #Brent #MiddleEast #PolishEconomy","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[244],"tags":[1901,2909,3311,90,64,2726,3073,2701,2941,3312],"class_list":["post-6304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-energy","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-michal-stajniak","tag-ministry-of-energy","tag-poland","tag-target","tag-trump","tag-usd","tag-vat","tag-xtb"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6305,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions\/6305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}