Oil’s taxing times
Protesters outraged by high petrol taxes brought parts of Europe to a halt this week. But are taxes really the root cause of the oil crisis?
IF IT had not really happened, it might seem absurd: one of the world's big oil producers, a developed country with a well-diversified economy, almost grinds to a halt because many of its petrol stations run out of stock. Yet that is precisely what happened this week in Britain, a country self-sufficient in oil thanks to its North Sea fields, as well as across several other European countries.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Oil’s taxing times”
From the September 16th 2000 edition
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