Truckers Protest As Germany Says Oil Measures Over

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

Saturday September 23 12:59 PM ET Truckers Protest As Germany Says Oil Measures Over

By Adam Tanner

BERLIN (Reuters) - More than 1,200 trucks protested in several German cities Saturday after the government ruled out more tax relief or sales of the country's strategic reserves to ease the impact of higher oil prices.

Finance Minister Hans Eichel earlier said the government would stop at measures to raise tax deductions for commuters and to provide winter heating oil relief announced Friday.

Following the example of other European nations like France and Belgium which have answered mass demonstrations with tax relief would be a ``dangerous game,'' Eichel said in Prague.

Truckers, whose original protests prompted the government action, renewed demonstrations by slowing traffic in Hanover, Leipzig and Dresden.

About 250 farmers with tractors and buses protested when German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder gave a speech at Memmingen in Bavaria. They said his policies were bringing them to ruin.

Opposition conservatives called for the government to follow the U.S. example and sell part of Germany's strategic oil reserves in an effort to lower prices from a ten-year high.

``Everything that helps lower petrol and heating oil prices for families is good,'' Erwin Teufel, the Conservative premier of Baden-Weurttenberg state, said.

But a German Finance Ministry spokesman said the government would not be releasing parts of the reserve. ``It is not the time as the prices are high but there is plenty of supply,'' he said.

As in other European Union nations, Germany keeps an emergency 90-day oil reserve against supply interruptions.

It has 25 million tons -- half crude oil and half refined products. It does however have a pre-existing program to sell crude oil above its 90-day reserve.

The United States announced Friday that it would remove 30 million barrels of oil its reserve next month, the first release for a national emergency since the 1991 Gulf War.

FARCE OR GOOD POLITICS?

Hoping to defuse the issue, Schroeder announced Friday that he would raise tax deductions next year for all commuters, a move extending tax relief now available to motorists to walkers as well as cyclists and bus and rail passengers.

``The relief measures are a signal that one must be independent from oil, or else we will remain extorted by those who have extorted from us,'' Schroeder said Saturday.

He later blamed oil firms and OPEC (news - web sites) for the higher prices.

But truckers, who do not benefit from the move, struck back Saturday. About 1,000 trucks blocked traffic in Hanover, site of the Expo 2000 world's fair. Some 150 trucks blocked roads in Dresden, and another 60-70 were in Leipzig, officials said.

Further protests were expected Tuesday in Berlin.

Conservatives, who have advocated scrapping plans to raise petrol taxes by six pfennigs (2.6 cents) in 2001, said Schroeder's measures left many drivers who do not commute to work, such as pensioners and housewives, without relief.

``Millions of citizens will not get a pfennig of help,'' Christian Social Union head Edmund Stoiber told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Some newspapers also condemned Schroeder's move.

``What might make sense as a compensation for motorists and perhaps for train travelers is a farce in terms of finance policy,'' the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily wrote in an editorial.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000923/wl/energy_germany_dc_2.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 23, 2000


Moderation questions? read the FAQ