Taxi drivers and private hire drivers protest against high fuel prices: pickets in Rome and meetings in Florence ahead of possible strikes

As regards taxi drivers and private hire drivers, whilst the fronts and venues for their protests may not be unified, their main demand is unequivocal – a demand which, moreover, had already been put forward in a letter to the government in September: the issue concerning the tax credit which “year after year has been reduced to a minimum”, explains Carlo di Alessandro di Federtaxi Cisal.

“This is a measure that is easily implementable and could have an impact on operating costs, which have risen by 25–30 per cent since the crisis began.” “We are determined, and a strike is one of the various forms of protest on the table.”

There is also a request from some organisations to extend the scheme for commercial diesel (although taxis are now almost all petrol, hybrid or electric) and for an extraordinary compensation fund.

Moreover, the call for certainty regarding the tax credit, even in the medium term, is one of the key points raised by the road haulage industry’s representative associations, who are due to meet Transport Minister Matteo Salvini and his deputy, Edoardo Rixi, at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (MIT) on Tuesday.

Following the first meeting of the “Permanent Round Table on Road Freight Transport and Logistics”, established on 8 October, “with the aim of facilitating dialogue between transport companies and clients in defining intervention policies and government strategies in the road haulage and logistics sector”, no immediate developments are expected: rather, it will be an initial exploratory meeting to put the following on the tablestructural measures to be addressed, following last week’s emergency measures introduced last week, with 105 million allocated by the government to the sector.