Miranda Sarmento Confirms a Special Tax on Energy Companies' Extraordinary Profits — Government Will Calibrate the 2022 Contribuição Solidária Temporária Template and Walk a Bill Into Parliament 'A Breve Trecho' as Hormuz Lifts Diesel Past €2/L

Finance Minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento confirmed on Tuesday, 5 May 2026 that the Government will advance a special tax on the extraordinary profits of energy companies, with petrolíferas (oil and fuel-trading companies) as the immediate target and a possible extension to the distribution sector along the lines of the 2022 precedent. The minister told reporters that the proposal will reach Parliament a breve trecho — shortly — but pushed the rate and revenue questions to a later round, calling specifics ainda é prematuro dizer (still premature to say).

The trigger is the same Hormuz/Iran channel that has been writing the pump-price story for two months. Gasolina 95 simples was set at a national average €1.993/L for the week of 5–10 May, gasóleo simples at €2.055/L — even after Portaria 204-B/2026, effective 4 May, raised the ISP discount on diesel by 1.5 cêntimos to absorb part of the wholesale surge. The fiscal-policy escalation announced on Tuesday is the second instrument the Government is putting on the table to manage the same shock.

The 2022 Template — Contribuição Solidária Temporária, Recalibrated

Sarmento's framing was explicit on the operational lineage. The Government will pegar naquilo que foram as medidas tomadas em 2022, calibrá-las, melhorá-las — take what was done in 2022, calibrate it, improve it. That refers to Portugal's Contribuição Solidária Temporária, the windfall mechanism enacted in late 2022 in response to the Russia-shock energy spike. The 2022 instrument applied to extraordinary profits of fuel-trading and food-distribution companies — petrolíferas plus large retail surfaces — and used a baseline-deviation test rather than a flat surcharge. Tuesday's confirmation is that the same template, not a fresh design, is the starting point. The minister flagged that the macroeconomic backdrop differs: food and energy inflation now reads at 2.2-2.3 percent against the much higher 2022 print, which gives the Government room to set a tighter, narrower instrument rather than re-running the broad 2022 sweep.

The Five-Minister Letter and the EU-Level Rejection

The Tuesday confirmation lands after Portugal co-signed a letter — alongside Germany, Spain, Italy and Austria — asking the European Commission for an EU-level windfall mechanism. Brussels said no on the substance, citing the unanimity bar that EU-wide tax measures have to clear in the Council, and pointed member states back to the national level. That is the legal frame the Portuguese measure now sits inside: the Commission has confirmed national-level windfall taxes on energy companies remain permitted, member-state by member-state, even with no EU-wide coordination.

Eurogroup Endorsement at the European Parliament

The political cover came in the same news cycle from the Eurogroup chair. Greek finance minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis — Eurogroup president — told the European Parliament on Tuesday that windfall taxation on energy companies is permitted, but at the national level, citing supply-chain vulnerabilities and the precedent of member-state windfall measures during the 2022 energy crisis. Pierrakakis's statement is the cleanest external endorsement the Lisbon Government will get for the unilateral path it now plans to take.

Sarmento's Comparative Frame — Portugal Already Second in EU Crisis Support

The minister anchored the announcement in a specific IMF read: Portugal ranks second in the European Union for the size of its crisis-related fiscal support measured as a percentage of GDP. That reference matters in two directions. It is a defensive talking point against opposition charges of inaction — the Government is already paying out among the most aggressive support packages in the bloc — and it is also a constraint on how heavy the new windfall instrument can be calibrated, since adding more revenue extraction on top of a top-tier expenditure stack tightens the fiscal balance the BdP has been flagging in its 91 percent of GDP debt read.

What's Still Open — Rate, Scope, Revenue, Calendar

The four numbers that will determine the instrument's actual bite were all left blank on Tuesday: the rate, the precise sectoral scope (oil only, or oil plus distribution / large-retail), the projected revenue, and the parliamentary calendar. A breve trecho in Sarmento's mouth typically means the next OE2026-cycle window or a discrete autonomous bill in the coming weeks rather than months. The 2022 instrument was approved in late December 2022 with retroactive application — a fast-track template that could be reactivated if the Hormuz channel keeps the fuel-price spike open through the summer.

The Political Read — A Cleanly-Domestic Lever After Brussels Said No

The combined sequence — five-minister letter, Commission rejection, national instrument, Eurogroup endorsement — is a tightly-managed diplomatic frame. Lisbon establishes that it tried the multilateral path first, was told the unanimity bar would not clear, and is now using the legal latitude that the Commission itself confirmed. For the domestic political audience, the Government acquires a fiscal lever calibrated against the same energy companies that show up at the pump every Monday morning, in a window where the cost-of-living debate has been the dominant reading of every economic data release. The rate and scope choices, when they land, will set the size of the bite — but the political logic of the instrument has been signed off on.