Eni Caps the Pump, and the Lagoon Reads the Ticket

Eni, Italy's largest energy provider, said on Friday that it is setting a thirty-day fuel price cap, initially for one month, to take some of the sting out of recent price rises, according to The Local Italy. The measure applies to the company's own network and is described as a response to a period of sustained increases at the pump.

Fuel prices in Italy are a recurring political irritant, and the foreign wires cover them as a cost-of-living story rather than an energy one. The Local Italy's report gives no figure for the increase the cap is meant to answer, and none should be inferred.

Venice is an unusual place to read such a measure. The historic city has almost no private cars; its commercial life moves on water, and the diesel that powers delivery barges, refuse boats, water taxis and the vaporetto fleet is bought in the same market the cap now touches. How much of that traffic Eni supplies is not something the wire states.