Hungarian petrol stations could close down rapidly due to the extended price cap
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Back on November 15th last year, the Hungarian government introduced a fuel price cap in order to mitigate the rapidly growing prices of both diesel and petrol in Hungary.
Not so long after the introduction of the measures, Viktor Orbán said that over 80% of Hungarians agreed with the fuel price caps. He commented that “one must not sit idly when prices go sky high”.
Thanks to the government’s decision to cap retail petrol and diesel prices at HUF 480 (€1.30) per litre, the price of fuel has become the lowest in Hungary among European Union countries.
Originally, the fuel price cap was set to be expired on February 15th, and many people speculated that the price of petrol would skyrocket once the cap is lifted. Recently, it has been extended until July 1st.
However, the capping of retail fuel prices has pushed many petrol stations to the brink of bankruptcy, and they started to introduce limits on how much fuel people could purchase. Other places straight up asked customers not to fuel up at their station because they had a loss from having to purchase fuel for more than the capped price of €1.3. Some even found a way to close down their stations for a short while to mitigate losses.
The government’s response was to also cap the prices of both diesel and petrol at wholesale levels, which has led to the withdrawal of 30% of wholesalers, leaving only the Hungarian-owned MOL to supply fuel in Hungary.
The majority of people in English speaking countries or countries that have English as a national language (such as India, population around 1.4 billion as opposed to the US, population around 330 million) call ‘gas’ stations petrol stations or petrol pumps. It is only in North America that they are called ‘gas stations’. In Australia they are also called ‘servos’ as slang Please, DNH use standard English expressions not ones that a minority of English speakers use. Gas is not petrol!!!!!!
Thanks Lexicon, noted.