The Unequal Price of Europe’s Transport Transition
The fuel protests in Italy and France point to transport poverty more than to a revolt against climate policy, and they call for relief that protects the most exposed without undoing the transition. A commentary by Federica Maria Raiti
Since late September, the price of diesel has brought together groups that rarely march side by side. Hauliers and farmers blocked roads across southern Italy, olive growers in Puglia found that harvesting now costs more than leaving the olives on the trees, and on 17 October thousands of mostly young people marched against the cost of living in Milan, Turin and Bologna.
In France, a day of action that began online as a protest against fuel prices drew 550,000 people by the interior ministry’s count and brought the gilets jaunes back to the roundabouts.
Behind the anger lies a chain of geopolitical shocks.
Since 2022 Europe has had to replace most of its Russian gas and oil and absorb attacks on Red Sea shipping. Since the war on Iran began on 28 February, oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz have fallen from 21.6 million barrels a day at the end of 2025 to 4.9 million in the second quarter of 2026.
Diesel is where Europe is most exposed: Gulf producers supplied around 40% of the diesel the EU imports from outside the bloc in the first half of the year. In Italy the monthly average price of diesel reached €2.25 a litre in October, above any month of the 2022 crisis (Figure 1).
Shipping is the least discussed constraint. More than 500 tankers, around 17% of tanker capacity, are under US, EU or UK sanctions and serve the shadow trade in Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan oil (Shipping Italy).
Who pays for the shock
It is tempting to read the protests as a backlash against climate policy. The demands say otherwise: a capped price for diesel, tax credits, faster refunds. What these groups share is that they cannot easily drive less. Transport poverty, which EU law defines as the inability or difficulty to meet the cost of transport or to reach essential services and activities, is therefore a better lens than the price of fuel alone.
The burden falls unevenly. The poorest fifth of euro area households spends around 9% of its disposable income on energy, against an average of about 5.5%, and has a negative median saving rate; when energy prices rise, the least wealthy cut consumption about twice as much as households with a buffer. Low income also shuts people out of the car altogether.
In 2025, 10.5% of Italians below the poverty line could not afford one, against 2.5% of those above it, and among poor people living alone the share was 17.9% for women and 14.0% for men. Yet about three in four Italians who commute to work go by car or motorbike, in the country with the highest car ownership rate in the EU.
Transport poverty thus takes two forms: households that cannot afford the car they need, and households that must keep running one whatever fuel costs. Residents of rural and peripheral areas and young people on low incomes face both risks, and small road hauliers, for whom fuel is about 30% of costs and margins are often 2 to 3%, have little room to absorb the rise.
Relief that does not undo the transition
Ignazio Angeloni has described the policy problem as a trilemma: protect the most vulnerable, limit the impact on the deficit and avoid neutralising price signals on energy demand. Broad fuel tax cuts do poorly on all three counts.
Italy spent about €2.1 billion on diesel excise cuts between March and September. The cuts went to everyone who buys fuel, whatever their income, and only part of the saving reached the pump: in Germany, estimates of the pass-through range from two thirds to 83%. Italy is not an exception.
Across the 19 European countries in Bruegel’s fiscal response tracker, more than half of the €11.8 billion spent on relief by June was untargeted, and 86% of it increased the incentive to consume fossil fuels. The lesson is not new either.
In 2023, only about 12% of euro area energy support was targeted under a strict means-tested definition. A cut that becomes permanent would also blunt the carbon price that ETS2 will put on road fuels from 2028.
Separating the cyclical from the structural points to a better sequence. During an exceptional shock, support should be temporary and reach those with the least capacity to absorb it, through channels that already exist, such as the professional diesel refund for hauliers or income-tested transfers.
France ruled out a general pump discount and reopened its social leasing scheme, which lets low-income households who drive to work lease an electric car for under €200 a month. The Commission has proposed allowing Ireland to cut diesel excise only for hauliers and bus operators.
Germany’s €9 monthly public transport ticket in 2022 showed that relief can also cut emissions, since about 10% of the trips made with it replaced a car journey. As Lorenzo Bini Smaghi has argued, borrowing is a sound answer to a lasting energy shock only when it funds investment that reduces dependence on imports.
In transport, that investment means frequent and reliable public transport, connections for rural areas, operating funds as well as new buses, and help for workers and small firms to switch vehicles. Part of the money is already there.
The Social Climate Fund should mobilise at least €86.7 billion across the EU between 2026 and 2032, and Italy’s €9.3 billion plan includes €1.74 billion for public transport wallets for people in transport poverty, though no help to buy or lease cleaner vehicles.
The budget debate now under way is the first test. The government has already set aside €1.8 billion for fuel price containment in 2027, in a form still to be decided, while the measures announced in its budget plan target electricity and gas bills. Spending that money on targeted mobility support, and launching the mobility wallets early, would protect the people now in the streets without switching off the price signal.
The second test is in Brussels. At this month’s European Council, Italy and the Visegrád countries secured a request for the Commission to reassess the impact of ETS2, though not a further postponement. That review should be used to strengthen the scheme’s social compensation, not to delay it again.
The one-year delay already agreed is estimated to cost around €10 billion in climate-related social investment, according to the European Environmental Bureau, and every further year without a predictable carbon price makes it harder for households and firms to plan the switch.
European Mobility Week closed on 22 September under the theme “Mobility for Everyone”. A transport policy for all should guarantee affordable access to jobs, education and essential services instead of treating low fuel prices as an end in themselves. Its success should be judged by who can reach essential places, at what cost and with how much exposure to the next oil shock.
IEP Bocconi does not express opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors.
