While your average American driver has bearable (albeit higher than before) fuel prices, in Europe, where the price per liter has gone up by more than 50 percent since 2009 in some cases, things are turning desperate. A Bloomberg report that analyses the situation in a deeper fashion has just been published, and the things it points out ain’t pretty at all…

The crisis affects all of the countries on the continent, from east to west, north to south. People are doing what they can to still make sense of what little earnings they still have, and not spend most of them on fuel.

You see, black market phenomena only really appears when overpricing occurs, and unofficial sources are able to provide the same service/product at far cheaper prices, without all of the hassles of legality.

In Poland and Lithuania, for instance, two countries with a direct border with Russia (a blessed nation, where fuel is roughly half the price) people have been flocking over to get the stuff cheaper. In the latter, one in four people admits to have purchased fuel illegally. Some bring it back and try to sell it much below the local market price, or they just steal it from their local refineries, thus having reportedly cost Europe as a hole in excess of $4 billion in taxes.

Sure, it could be argued that there is some sort of industrial karma, if you will, or a kind of reap what you sow mechanism at work here. The oil companies that are complaining they’ve been hard-hit are the ones that justified the ludicrous price hikes in Europe (and elsewhere) in the first place.

Everybody knows that there’s no such thing as “the legitimate oil industry,” because if it were legitimate, poor Europeans wouldn’t be overcharged and asked to pay money they don’t even have because many of them don’t even have a job any more.

We don’t condone it in any way, but it’s certainly understandable what’s happening and things will only get worse if fuel prices aren’t brought back down to bearable levels. Until then, looting, stealing and tax evasion will flourish.

By Andrei Nedelea

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