If it worked with Ukraine, why not also Iran? Green MEPs urge EU to tax oil super profits

Europe’s Green party has called on the European Commission to exercise the powers it previously used during the Ukraine war to tax the exceptional profits made by big oil and gas companies during the ongoing conflict in Iran. “There are models in Europe that we can use to tax these super profits,” German MEP Rasmus Andresen told a European Parliament debate in Strasbourg on Wednesday (7 October), in his call to crack down on Iran-crisis profiteering. The Strasbourg debate came after Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain wrote to Ireland’s finance minister in August calling for an EU-wide framework to tax windfall profits. Ireland holds the rotating EU presidency and can set agendas in the EU Council until the end of the year. Several of those in the group of six EU states already put in place energy windfall taxes since this summer, ranging from 60 percent levies on excess fuel profits in Poland to 33 percent in Portugal. Many other EU countries oppose introducing another tax at European level, which would require unanimity among all 27 member states to put in place. But for his part, the Greens’ Andresen told MEPs in the hemicycle on Wednesday: “I don’t understand how despite the fact that there is this initiative from these six member states, that the commission is not taking action.” Estimates from NGO Transport and Environment found that excess profits of €7.5bn were seen by eight oil companies alone in the first half of 2026 in Europe. The figures were twice what they had made in the previous quarter. The EU had reacted to soaring energy prices after Russia's full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 with a special "solidarity" tax on oil and gas firms, said groups on the Parliament's left. A commission assessment found that the measure raised €28bn in 2022-2023. A senior official representing the Irish presidency, Thomas Byrne, said on Wednesday that windfall taxes "could be considered to respond to the concern related to the rising cost of living". But energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen poured cold water on appeals for EU-level action, saying “corporate taxation falls mainly in the realm of national competence” in legal terms. Andresen's fellow Green MEP, Marie Toussaint, said taxing Iran profits could be used “to pay for the energy transformation” in Europe, in the context of difficult talks on the EU's next multi-annual European budget. If they were not taxed, “how can they be exonerated from all responsibility in the rise of prices at the gas station?,” said the French vice-president of the Greens group.