In mid-November last year, the government decided to fix the upper limit of the price of regular gasoline and diesel at HUF 480 for three months.

On the condition that only gas stations that cannot supply motorists with fuel for 48 hours may close. Moreover, they also announced that MOL will help those who are unable to do so and take over their wells for operation.

Even then, the left began to create a small degree of hysteria, saying that hundreds of wells would be ruined.

After the market price of crude oil justified this, the government extended the February 15 deadline by three months.

The reason for this was not only to protect the wallets of motorists, but also because, as the Minister of Finance explained, the inflation that was hanging around at the beginning of the year had to be restrained by some means. Even though both he and the prime minister said that the price freeze on fuel, food, and certain interest rates, as well as the freezing of utility prices, would reduce Hungarian inflation by no less than 3 percent,

this argument did not interest the left and its press. Because for them - as always - creating confusion is their main goal.

Then came the headlines: "The price of gas stations will be HUF 520 when the price cap ends", the same in another place, "Gasoline will cost HUF 600...", even "fuel can be HUF 700 per liter", "dozens of gas stations may go bankrupt". , "within 1-2 weeks there will be supply problems", and so on.

I beg you: how would they know this in advance? And why aren't they happy that gasoline is only HUF 480 per liter here?

Of course, these headlines trickled down to people who only watch RTL and ATV. Our neighbor (by the way, a cute, decent person) texted my partner in horror, saying "so now I can only fill up 10 liters?". The news had such a basis in reality that among the big players, Shell really limited the amount of 95 normal gasoline that could be issued at the same time.

Yes, but not everywhere, at only 10 filling stations you can buy normal gasoline for HUF 50,000 gross. That is, refueling of no less than one hundred liters is allowed at one time. But which passenger car has a 100 liter tank?  

But, back to the wells and reality. There are about 2,000 filling stations in Hungary (about 400 of which are owned by MOL). According to Napi.hu's article the day before yesterday (!) Gábor Egri, the president of the Association of Independent Gas Stations, said that

already 20 (ie: twenty!), mainly family-owned wells, have decided to close due to the fuel price freeze.

According to him, "so far, the government has not given any indication that it would compensate the gas station owners, it will continue to make them pay the costs of the price freeze."

We readily believe that the life of family-owned wells has now become very difficult, but if compared to the 2,000 wells - let's say 100-200 will be closed - that only accounts for 5-10 percent of the wells. (Nobody can predict the exact number.)

On the other hand, Origo has calculated that the fuel price stop will save motorists (and their families) approximately HUF 60-70 billion.

The government does not have much room for maneuver: the level of the excise tax is determined by the European Union, and the current Hungarian tax burden is already below its minimum level. The VOSZ now wants a VAT reduction, which is difficult because the government has to keep the budget balanced.

But the hysteria continues to increase: we have already read an article that "forecasts" a national movement with the following title:

"They are organizing a gigantic car demonstration against Viktor Orbán because of the gasoline crisis!"

Nooooo normal?

Featured Image: Pixabay