Petrol Up 20 Percent in Six Months as the Interior Does Its Sums

Petrol prices in Italy have risen by about 20 percent over the past six months, according to The Local Italy, which on Wednesday set out what drivers should expect to pay at the pump and where in the country fuel is cheapest. The same outlet reported this week that fuel costs are climbing across Europe, with the price of filling a tank diverging sharply between countries as governments take different measures to blunt the crisis.

The comparison matters in a peninsula where the car is not a luxury but a necessity. Italy's rail and bus networks thin out sharply away from the great corridors, and the country's own political class has spent the autumn arguing over levies and rebates as pump prices approach records. Reuters and other foreign wires have carried the same theme: a fuel shock arriving on top of an economy with little fiscal room to absorb it.

For Basilicata, the arithmetic is particular. This is a region of roughly 537,000 people spread across two provinces, with a mountainous interior where settlements sit far apart and public transport runs to a rural timetable. A rise of a fifth at the pump is not felt evenly across Italy; it is felt hardest where the alternative to driving does not exist.