With fuel prices at petrol stations remaining high, German Federal Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) and five European counterparts are launching a fresh push for a windfall profits tax. "We must address the issue of high energy prices by discussing an EU-wide framework to tax windfall profits," the news magazine Der Spiegel quoted on Saturday from a letter written by the six ministers to the finance minister of Ireland, which currently holds the EU Council Presidency.
The ministers called for the subject to be added to the agenda of the meeting of EU finance ministers taking place in Ireland in mid-September. Klingbeil and his counterparts from Austria, Italy, Portugal and Spain have been campaigning for a windfall tax at EU level for months. Such a measure was introduced on a temporary basis in 2022 as an emergency response to high energy prices in the wake of the war in Ukraine, with energy corporations required to pay it on extraordinary profits.
Portugal presented a draft law for a windfall profits tax at the end of July. The revenues are to be used "to support the families and economic sectors most affected by the increases in fuel prices," the government announced.
"We are experiencing one of the greatest supply shocks in decades," Der Spiegel quoted on Saturday from the joint letter of the six finance ministers. "Around the world, resentment is growing over the rise in the cost of living." A common approach is needed, they wrote, to relieve people of this burden.
Several major oil corporations published their quarterly results in July. According to the aid organisation Oxfam, the profits of the six largest fossil fuel companies, BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies, rose to a combined total of just under 40 billion euros between April and June. For the full year 2026, they are expected to add up to 147 billion euros. Oxfam is calling for a "general and permanent windfall tax of at least 50 percent" on those profits that exceed a return of ten percent.
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