compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - dieseldogg

Including the Ex Balkan countries

Based on a very brief tour recently

I did not note the prices but think that mostly about £1.20/1.30 per litre, & this in lower/significently lower wage economies

Who has the facts to hand?

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel / petrol is not that expensive - Ethan Edwards

as requested

http://www.aaireland.ie/AA/Motoring-advice/Petrol-Prices.aspx

Link shows Price's across for the EU member countries and for the UK. Last two columns are all in Euro cents for direct comparison.

As to the national affordability try ' the Big Mac test'...

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/big-mac-index

Though do consider that things are not always as they appear. Take Poland. Fuel price broadly similar to here but the Big Mac affordability looks like a problem. Little wonder then that an awful lot of cars in Poland are not run on Unleaded or Derv but on much cheaper LPG and that Italy / Poland make a lot of LPG conversion kits.

Seeing as how one of the LPG conversion bloke's I use is Polish I say huzzah for the Poles. Great blokes and they know a heck of a lot about LPG.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - daveyjp

http://www.theaa.com/onlinenews/allaboutcars/fuel/2011/august2011-overseas.pdf

Currency fluctuations are why it appears a level playing field. If there were €1.50 to the £ you would repost saying fuel was cheap abroad!

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - oldtoffee

I was in France 2 weeks ago and was paying €1.29 at hypermarches for a litre of diesel. At €1.13 to the £ that makes it £1.14 a litre, considerably less expensive. On the motorways it was €1.44 or more but still cheap vs UK. Saving 26p a litre on a 70 litre tank full over UK prices makes it worth the effort detouring off the motorway for a break and a fill up before crossing back to the UK.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - sandy56

Diesel and petrol are VERY expensive, the big problem is that the euroepean governments use it as a quick way of robbing the motorist.

If you travel outside europe with its stasi states you will note that elsewhere in the rest of the world where the vast majority of people live, fuel is cheap.Try 10p a litre.

If the European motorist stood up on his hind legs and complained then maybe things would change.

Until people realise that we actually do live in a democracy and we can change the government if we chose to.

Fuel and energy is Expensive because the government makes it so.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - colinh
Just travelled from Spain to Italy - Petrol €1.303 Spain - €1.54 France - €1.64 Italy - off motorway, but not supermarkets.
compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - Collos25
If you did not pay the tax on fuel the governments of the various countries would devise other ways of extracting the money out of your wallet.At least when you travel in europe the various governments have spent money on the infrastructure its like going into the dark ages in parts of the UK when I return to see my mother.
compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - jamie745

When the Duty Escalator came in here in the early 90s, Oil was rolling out at around $10 a barrel. The Government capitalised on a low oil price to raise revenue, fair enough you could say. But when oil prices were rising in the 00s and Mr Brown was just lumping on duty left and right whenever he felt like it, it got ridiculous. And if his (or Blair's at the time) Government wasnt wasting so much they wouldnt of needed to charge us so much.

But Collos has a good point (shockingly) about investment. In the mid 90s, the UK were among the cheapest in Europe for petrol and diesel, now we're in the top five most expensive but roads are still largely the same, there hasnt been much development or improvement of the road network (if anything they've done their best to make it worse) and public transport is still as tragic as it was 20 years ago.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - Ethan Edwards

I agree with you Jamie. Very little infrastructure investment but to be fair the UK has built lots and lots of roads, just in foreign countries and called it overseas aid. Stuff the uk thats HMG's motto , shovel our tax cash to ungrateful foreigners. Twas ever thus.

On a happy note Prescotts moronic M4 bus lane has gone so thats good news. Shame we could have the Lord of the Pies flattened into the tarmac.....still can't have it all.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - jamie745

There are specialist groups of frankly heroic people in the military who can go into war zones and build a hospital inside a week or a whole highway in one day. Yet we cant fill in potholes back home?

Dont get me started on 2 Jags Prescott, a laugh he may be, an embarassment to Britain he also is. Much worse than his M4 Bus Lane was his regulation that new housing cannot be built with anymore than 1.5 parking spaces meaning that housing developments of say 20 homes could have no more than 30 parking spaces (and that was an upper maximum, typically you're looking at 1 space each or even less than that) in an attempt to enforce his view of one-car-per-family. This is a man who also thought two car families would double congestion overnight, ignoring the fact the frequency of both cars on the same road at the same time is extremely rare. The reality is with people doing different hours and women going out to work these days (something the Labour Party rightly championed for a long time) alot of families require two cars. Those cars ended up parked on the streets, filling up our roads and turning them into car parks. This not only was inconvenient, but causes hazards for pedestrians, cyclists, limited bus access, limited emergency access etc at the same time the Government then let private parking vultures essentially do whatever they like and at the same time council parking wardens were given bigger incentives to give out tickets. Co-incidence? I dont think so. Estate Agents have been struggling to shift 5 bedroomed houses because they only have one parking space, development blocks where half have a space and half dont see the half with spaces sold first (obviously).

There's one well documented case of a development in Reading of around 45 apartments, under the guidance of PPG13 only 26 spaces were approved. Guess which 26 apartments sold first? You got it, the ones with spaces.

Then they come out with new taxes to get cars off of our roads and enforce higher parking charges due to the problems created by on street parking. Problems they caused in the first place to invent a new revenue stream and on and on and on and on it goes. Within just 7 years of Prescott, Government revenue from parking charges rose 50% compared to before Labour came to power and parking fines raise 7 times more than Speed Camera's.

Thankfully the Government scrapped Prescott's pathetic ruling known as PPG13 which prevented housing developments having enough parking spaces on purpose. It was scrapped this year but the fact is they've been built now and we now have to live with the trouble caused by it for generations until we can raise the money to go and rebuild it all again.

God the man annoys me, i'd best shut up now i'll just type for hours about his policies....

Edited by jamie745 on 04/10/2011 at 17:28

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - Bobbin Threadbare
When I was in Cyprus in July petrol was about €1.25 / litre and diesel about €1.28 / litre. Not too bad.
compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - Collos25
Expensive for Cypriots earning an average of 140€ a week.
compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - Bobbin Threadbare
Expensive for Cypriots earning an average of 140€ a week.

I'm getting about €400 p/wk for Cypriots from my searches. Besides, for us, €1.25 / litre is about £1.08 (today!) which is about 2007/8 ish prices (I think we exceeded the quid mark around then) so compared to what we pay now (£1.30 / litre up where I live) it's not bad.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - oldroverboy

God the man annoys me, i'd best shut up now i'll just type for hours about his policies....

Extremely well written jamie! and the rest too, but just saved the gem above! In amman, jordan people are not happy because petrol now 55p+ a litre... on an average wage of £150 a month for a gov employee...

For the macdonald test, almost uk prices (not that I eat them there, because there is so much other good food available.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - Armitage Shanks {p}

This site is useful for France. http://www.zagaz.com/

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - injection doc

I think petrol prices are currently crippling the economey more than is publicised ! I know our fuel bill is our largest houshold bill by far in a month and so it is for many of our friends. Living in a rural area public transport is not an option whatsoever and what public transport is left is dire. We did try travelling by Train to Sussex recently and every train was 15 mins minimum arriving at its destination which meant we missed veryone of the 4 connections which turned a 3.5 hrs journey into nearly 7 hrs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I reckon if they dropped fuel to £1-£1.10 ltr the economey would improve ! The goverment are just robbing us blind for all their errors !

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - jamie745

The various anti-car policies of the last Government worked on the assumption that the whole country lived in London and could cycle if they wanted to, things like PPG13 i mentioned earlier in this thread were indicative of the cruel anti-car idealogy of the Transport policy for the last decade, a transport policy which hasnt seen public transport improve by even 1%. The plan to get more people on the bus was to make owning a car so expensive and inconvenient that we had no choice, hardly progressive planning is it?

Im sick of us having to make a defence for the car and its true that fuel prices are probably impacting more than the media is interested in right now. Motorists dont dare complain because then the Greens just come out on their horses and scream extremely loudly for weeks of how 'motorists should be forced to pay for murdering the planet!' etc

On the other hand its not impacting the normal motorist as much as haulage firms. Even mid size ones have diesel bills annually of £50million (most of it tax) and even 1p off adds up to tens of thousands of pounds for them. Quite how Bus Operators get a 43p a litre rebate and our Hauliers get nothing im not sure.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - BenG

Fuel is expensive and will only increase in price as peak oil (extraction capacity, if not reserves) approaches.

As the population of the UK increases, more towns and cities will gridlock leading to more wasted fuel, pollution and travel delays. People need to choose more sustainable lifestyles by living closer to their work places and other local amenities to reduce their car-dependence. Plenty of car journeys are short and could be replaced by walking or cycling, cutting local traffic congestion. I have always lived within cycling distance of work, despite having moved jobs and countries numerous times over the years, and this has saved me huge amounts of time, money and kept me fit without the need to pay for gym memberships, etc.

I am appalled when I see people in my street who only ever leave their houses using a car, and people 10-15 years younger than me who can barely climb a flight of stairs. When are the British going to end their self-imposed addiction to driving everywhere and address the adverse effects of traffic congestion, environmental pollution and poor public health which this attitude engenders?

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - jamie745

Oh here we go, shouldve wondered when this cut and paste piece of communistical socialist rubbish would make its way on here from the petrolprices troll blog. I could sit here and explain how cars are not responsible for the over congestion and how road travel in general is a very minor cause of 'environmental pollution' and reducing every year yet seems to take most of the tax burden but what would be the point?

People need to choose more sustainable lifestyles by living closer to their work places and other local amenities to reduce their car-dependence.

Only somebody in a perfect job with a perfect life who's never had a problem would come out with rubbish like that.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - injection doc

well said Jamie

Tried cycling and got knocked off some years ago and motorist was never caught ! no effort made either and just told to accept the risk of cycling so gave that up ! public transport total joke. Have to live in country as daughter suffers with asthma but ok in rural area's. hers is caused by aircraft fumes ! I have rheumatoid arthritus so have to travel by car ! walking distances out of the question !

If our fuel bill for gas electric and diesel and petrol was less we could spend more !

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - dieseldogg

Hmmmmm,

However, just to stir things up a bit, I am still bemused by the Nos of cars on the roads here in NI at the weekend, i.e. mostly non business use.

So fuel is still affordable, but of course NI is very hevily diesel addicted so the better mpg's possibly have some ameliorating effect.

Plus plus our neighbours across the lane, my goodness, their cars never cool, in & out every few minitutes, per the wife who spends most days in the garden.

OK there are 4 dwellings, but still?

And yes Jamie, it is the hauliers who suffer.

But sine at least 50% of what they carry is disposable consumer "tat" this may be a good thing in the longer run.

Edited by dieseldogg on 07/10/2011 at 10:06

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - jamie745

The man on the ground as it were who's job and livelyhood depends on their container being full isnt responsible for whats in it. Theres alot of jobs and money tied up in 'tat' whether you like it or not, these fuel taxes are damaging British business.

I am still bemused by the Nos of cars on the roads here in NI at the weekend, i.e. mostly non business use.

How do you know they're non business use? Weekend is generally when people go shopping or do the things they dont have time to do during the week. Not that its any of your business.

Plus plus our neighbours across the lane, my goodness, their cars never cool, in & out every few minitutes, per the wife who spends most days in the garden.

Again, why do you care? May i ask why you're bored enough to observe what people across the road do with their cars? Ive lived in my house for a few years now and i know my next door neighbours name from accidentally getting his post once but everyone else could catch on fire and i probably wouldnt notice as its nothing to do with me. Im not in the business of observing other peoples lives and going 'do they need those cars?' as its none of my business.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - barney100

Is it not illegal to come over the channel with a full tank? Know it used to be on the ferries but don't know about the tunnel. I must admit to coming home with a full tank too.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - NVH

Last night I filled up in France.60 litres of premium excellium diesel at €1.33/litre. Normal diesel is 1.29 at the same total garage in "Bretagne".

When I arrive in the UK tomorrow there will still be 40 litres in the tank.

I call that a saving.

compared to the rest of Europe - Diesel/petrol is not that expensive - jamie745

Whats 'premium excellium diesel' exactly? Is it somehow better than normal diesel?