The average price of diesel at the pump across the EU has hit a record of €2.24 per litre, compared with €1.59 before the war erupted in the Middle East, according to European Commission data published on Thursday.
Twelve EU member states recorded fresh all-time highs, including Belgium, Italy, Romania and Poland, according to AFP. The increases are putting further pressure on household budgets. A new Euronews analysis found that filling a 50-litre tank with diesel now costs the equivalent of more than 15% of the gross monthly minimum wage in Bulgaria.
The latest Commission figures show that the price of diesel, the main fuel used by road freight transport and farming machinery, exceeded €2.50 per litre in Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland, and reached €2.44 in Germany.
In Belgium, where prices hit a record, diesel averaged €2.43 per litre on Monday, compared with €2.39 the previous week.
In Italy, the price rose by seven cents to €2.35 per litre. French filling stations, excluding overseas territories and Corsica, were charging an average of €2.37 per litre, a very slight decline.
Across the EU, prices rose by an average of one cent per litre over the past week.
The figures from the European Commission’s Weekly Oil Bulletin include taxes, which vary between countries and account for an average of 40% of the price paid at the pump across the bloc.
However, they do not take into account targeted subsidies, such as assistance for high-mileage drivers in France.
The EU average is weighted according to each country’s fuel consumption in 2024. It stood at €1.59 per litre in February, before the US-Israeli strikes on Iran sparked the war in the Middle East.
Fuel prices have been driven higher since February by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for fossil fuels from the Gulf, followed by a Houthi blockade of Saudi exports in the Red Sea and Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries.
Supply disruptions are only one factor pushing up pump prices. European refining margins — the difference between the cost of crude oil and the wholesale value of the fuels produced from it — have also remained high. ECB experts told Euronews in September that diesel margins were expected to peak in October, based on futures prices at the time.