Tax breaks for diesel fuel allocated for industrial usage will be phased out in 2013. Changes to Directive 2003/96/CE, which deals with taxes on energy products will eliminate the states from the power to differentiate if the use of diesel would be used for personal consumption, automobiles or heavy industry. To the extent that the extra costs incorporate final costs of the products, this new measure could increase prices for consumers.
Further, it will affect transport company incomes; adding insult to injury because the industry is already fragmented and mostly comprised of entrepreneurs with little capacity to pass on these cost increases to their final prices.
Also, it will increase costs of auto travel and distort entrepreneur decisions because it could compromise highway transportation options and make air, water and railroad transportation more favorable for maintaining current profit margins.
At the same time, it will demonstrate the need for another of the economic reforms that the current Spanish government should have tackled: developing better railroad commerce.
Once the new measure takes effect in 2013, at the tail end of the most serious crisis in recent memory, it probably won't seem adequate to implement it given that it puts greater financial strain on businesses, which is what the prices are signifying.
