The Guardian was reporting this morning of panic buying of petrol in the UK ahead of a possible strike by truckers over the high price of diesel (gasóleo). In Europe, including Portugal, the fishermen and trucker's have been on strike for a few weeks now. Since the beginning of the year the price of gasóleo has nearly doubled, from 90c in December to over 1,40€ now. The price of petrol is even higher, around 1,60€ in some places, making prices comparable with the UK.
But when you consider that the minimum wage is 426€ per month in Portugal, compared to 1,190€ in the UK, with an average salary of approximately 800€ per month, then increased petrol prices put a real burden on many incomes, and if the price of a litre of fuel is the same, or more than, the equivalent in the UK, then the economy is in real trouble. Fuel in Spain has been costing only about 1,10€ per litre, so many Portuguese living near the border have been crossing over to fill up, leaving huge queues at petrol stations (bombas) and empty petrol stations in Portugal.
The fishermen got what they wanted within a few days of the strike starting. Tensions were high with some fighting at ports between police and fishermen, though nothing like the street battles in Belgium. In the truckers strike, one trucker has been killed and three injured when they were trying to stop other trucks, and the government has now sat down with the trucker's, especially when the they vowed to ratchet up their action and paralyse the country. On the news this afternoon there were reports of milk being thrown away because there were no lorries to transport it, and one mushroom supplier lost 300.000€ worth of mushrooms because they were sitting in the warehouse.
While the strikes were on there was little news, actually no news, of further increases in fuel. But as soon as the truckers announced they were going back to work, the two main fuel providers, Repsol and Galp announced that they were increasing the price of fuel by 1c. .
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