In reaction to soaring gasoline and diesel prices, SPD politicians have expressed openness to implementing an “over‑profit tax”. Austrian‑born Member of the European Parliament Jens Geier told “Der Spiegel” that the current price‑gouging “is hard to justify”. He explained that the petrol sold at stations today was subsidised months earlier and refined weeks ago, before the Iran war and the subsequent energy‑market spikes.
Geier reminded that, in response to the energy‑price shock following Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine, crisis profits had already been siphoned from the conglomerates. He urged the European Commission to “show readiness to reassess the instruments created in 2022 and subject them to a detailed review, also questioning whether they remain fit for purpose”.
Meanwhile, Manuela Schwesig, the SPD‑led Prime Minister of Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern, said that, though it would be ideal to prohibit such “shameful price‑gouging” through antitrust law, an over‑profit tax is still a viable option. She added that a levies on speculation profits has “already been successfully tried” during the 2022 energy crisis.
Between 2022 and 2023, oil‑, gas‑, coal‑ and refinery groups already faced a temporary EU‑level solidarity levy that imposed an additional 33 % tax on extraordinary profits. The temporary crisis tax defined an “over‑profit” as earnings more than 20 % above the average profit of the previous four years.
From an economic perspective, however, targeting the so‑called “fortuitous gains” of fuel firms is controversial. Dominik Enste from the Institute for German Economic Research (IW) in Cologne called an over‑profit tax “morally understandable but economically and regulatory‑policy risky”. He argued that high profits reveal an amoral market logic, where “the market rewards scarcity, not performance”. According to Enste, attempting to alter these outcomes could, in the long run, weaken investment and innovation.