On Monday, September 7, drivers protested on the 25 de Abril Bridge, in Lisbon, with a collective 'honk-a-thon' against the rise in fuel prices. According to the newspaper La Voz de Galicia, increases of up to 15 cents per liter were recorded in a single night, with one driver heard by the newspaper stating: "These are prices from Nordic countries and we don't have their salaries."
At a gas station in Antas, in Porto, employees described changes in customer behavior. "You can see that people try to use the car less," said one employee, adding that some brought forward refueling to the weekend and others travel to Spain. José María, 50 years old, explained that he avoids using the car in the city because it is too expensive, noting that prices at highway service areas are even higher.
The average reference price for diesel approached 2.15 euros per liter, the highest value ever recorded in Portugal, while gasoline reached 2.11 euros, after the biggest increase in four years. Some stations reached 2.40 euros per liter on Monday, although certain low-cost operators managed to limit the increases.
On the previous Friday, the Government approved an extraordinary discount of three cents per liter on the ISP. Adding to the measures in place since the beginning of the war in Ukraine in 2022, the total tax reduction amounts to 23 cents per liter. Despite this support, drivers heard expressed difficulties in bearing the costs, with José María's father, 71 years old, stating that he almost stopped driving and uses public transport. The article associates the price escalation with the United States' war against Iran and notes that fuels are, on average, more than 20% above last year's values.
