00:00Soaring diesel costs have triggered the protests.
00:03They're up around 40% on last year to around $2.50 per litre at Italy's motorway service stations.
00:11The protesters there are blocking refineries, causing fuel shortages in the Puglia region,
00:16around 150 stations run by Italy's biggest oil firm, Irni, had run out of fuel by this time last week.
00:23More than half of the total.
00:26And the blocked highways are also disrupting deliveries, causing food shortages.
00:31Several supermarkets in the Campania region say their shelves are half empty.
00:37Well, Fabrizio Pagani is professor of international economics at Sciences Po in Paris.
00:44This increase in the price of fuel, and particularly diesel,
00:48which is the one used by trucks and small vans to deliver food and other goods.
00:57This increase has been about 35%, 40% in the last nine months, so quite massive.
01:06And you have to think that these businesses are small businesses with very, very little margin.
01:13In many cases, they're a family business, and their resilience is limited.
01:18They cannot, you know, weather this kind of increase.
01:22Do you think this is simply about fuel, or is it symptomatic of a wider economic frustration?
01:30Yeah, I would say that, you know, the trigger is fuel also because most of these businesses cannot pass this
01:39increase to consumers
01:41because they are linked by contract and fixed prices in many cases.
01:47But you're right, there are also wider concerns, particularly this erosion of the purchasing powers of, you know,
01:56of, let's say, of the common entrepreneurs and also, you know, common citizens,
02:03which is eaten up by inflation.
02:07And this is the second round of inflation that we see in the last five years, so it's adding up.
02:13Well, Italy's government is set to rush through the support for truck drivers and farmers.
02:19Is that going to do the trick?
02:21Well, I think possibly, hopefully, it will solve the immediate issue of the roadblocks.
02:30They, as far as I understand, because the measure has been taken today,
02:36there is 100 million for trucks in, basically, in diesel tax credits,
02:45and there is something also for the agricultural sector and the fishing sector.
02:51Hopefully, that will help to alleviate some of these strong pressures these businesses have.
03:00However, until then, the whole issue of the sustainability of the business and what, you know,
03:09and the price of fuels is sold, I don't think that will really go away.
