“NFinance Minister Fernando Medina told Portuguese reporters: “We are evaluating and we have to evaluate what will happen from the point of view of price development, whether we are in an exceptional temporary peak and then it returns or not.” This came at the conclusion of the European Union Finance Ministers’ meeting, which was held today in Santiago de Compostela within the framework of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union.

The government official stressed that the Portuguese executive “has already demonstrated its ability and willingness to act to protect families, when it becomes absolutely necessary to do so.”

Asked if the government was considering taking action now, Fernando Medina said: “We will, if necessary, [mas] Now we have to understand whether this is a peak dynamic (…) and the markets (…) point to important price declines soon.”

He pointed out, “When prices rose a lot, the government adopted a set of measures, especially with regard to abolishing the carbon tax, but it was always assumed that it was a temporary measure.”

Moreover, Fernando Medina continued, “when prices began to rise significantly in recent weeks, the process of increasing the carbon tax stopped and, therefore, there was no increase in the tax burden.”

This position comes after the government decided at the beginning of September to maintain the reductions in tax on petroleum products at 13.1 cents per liter on diesel and 15.3 cents on gasoline this month and suspend the carbon rate update.

Among the measures in place is a discount on the Internet service provider equivalent to reducing the value-added tax rate from 23% to 13%, as well as compensation through the tax on petroleum products for the additional value-added tax revenues resulting from the increase in the price of fuel.

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