'Fortune': E.U. Transport Ministers Meet to Draft Response to Gas Protests
DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: As gas protests spread to more European countries, E.U. transport ministers are meeting today to draft a response.</s>DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: "Fortune" magazine's Janet Guyon has more now from London. And Janet, what is that response likely to be?</s>JANET GUYON, LONDON BUREAU CHIEF, "FORTUNE": Well, it is very hard to tell right now, David. I mean, what we've had so far is France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium have all rolled back fuel taxes in response to those protests. Germany is holding firm at the moment, although they are talking about some temporary cuts. The ministers are meeting in Luxembourg today. These are the transport ministers to discuss the fuel crisis, to discuss these protests, and whether they should have some concerted action. There's probably going to be a breakdown between the sort of French faction and the British-German faction between whether or not they should do any permanent rollbacks of fuel taxes. There are a lot of people here who do not like the idea of giving in to the protesters first off. And secondly, of rolling back taxes on fuel, which essentially is a way to discourage driving and support the Green movement here in Europe. There is a lot of support for the idea that people should pay a lot of tax on their fuel in order to reduce greenhouse gases, that kind of thing. So it's hard to predict exactly what will come out of this meeting today. But we could actually get some concerted action. It would be quite unusual for the European governments to get together that easily, but it's possible.</s>MARCHINI: These oil prices, Janet, kind of pack a double whammy because oil is priced in dollar and the euro is weak.</s>GUYON: That's right. That's right, Deborah, that is one of the issues here as well. Not only are oil prices high, but when you buy in euros, it hits you twice. So you've got three factors going on, you've got that high oil price, you've got the euro weakness, and then you've got the high fuel tax. So those three things are combining to really continue to keep people upset here in Europe. There are continuing to be some protests scattered across Europe and Sweden this morning, for example. And the British truckers have said they will give the government about 60 days to really give them some relief.</s>HAFFENREFFER: All right, Janet, thank you very much. Janet Guyon, from "Fortune" magazine, joining us from London. Those are the three E's we were hearing about yesterday: the euro, earnings and energy.