Refuelling in Luxembourg

Since the price of gasoline is climbing permanently, many Germans try to find a way for getting their gasoline at a lower price. A very frequently used kind to do this, is driving to our neighbour Luxembourg to refuel and buy other things like chocolate, coffee or cigarettes for a lower price than they are available in Germany. The way from Trier to Luxembourg is not very long but there are people who drive hundreds of kilometres just to get their fuel for a lower price. This habit has some bad consequences. It harms our economy, our environment, induces people to act against Luxembourg’s laws and also has some bad effects for the citizens of our neighbour country.
Firstly, refuelling in other countries than ours is bad for our economy because those people who fuel in Luxembourg do not pay taxes to Germany but to our neighbour country. This is one reason why German taxes are rising so often. As a consequence of this, more people start looking for an more inexpensive way for refuelling than doing this in Germany and in that way a vicious-circle develops. The filling stations near Luxembourg have to close because people only fuel for five Euros for getting to our neighbour country and filling up their cars over there. The only way for our gas stations is to sell their fuel for a very high price, so that they are able to exist. Those high prices push people even more to our neighbour countries where fuel is much cheaper than in Germany. Those facts show that refilling in Luxembourg has a bad effect on our economy.
Secondly, driving many kilometres to refuel in Luxembourg harms our environment because people waste petrol to drive over hundred kilometres just for saving some money when refuelling. By doing this, people pollute the air more than they have to, without caring about contributing to huge environmental crises like the global warming or weather catastrophes which affect the whole humanity. Very often there are traffic jams on the way to the refilling stations which forces the vehicle drivers to start and stop all the time which produces a lot of particulate matter.
Another reason why refuelling in Luxembourg does no good is that it induces people to act against the law of Luxembourg. In our neighbour country filling in canisters is forbidden. Many people do not really care about that law because they travel to Luxembourg just for filling in and have to buy lots of petrol so that it is worth the way and the time. If they are asked about the future use of the petrol they just bought, people tell something about their lawn-mower or try to invent other stories. The problem is that there is few checking of what was bought.
A last argument for not travelling to Luxembourg just for fuelling is that it has bad effects for the people who live near the long row of gasoline stations. Those people have to queue sometimes very long, too, to fuel at the gasoline station they live next to. They also have to deal with lots of cars which produce a disturbing noise all day long. If there is a big fire in one of the gasoline stations which stand in a long row at both sides of the street in Wasserbillig, it is not known if there are enough fire fighters to stop a huge catastrophe which could damage the environment the citizens live in.
All in all, travelling lots of kilometres to Luxembourg just for filling in does not make any sense. Germans use their money for supporting their neighbour countries without seeing the consequences of their acts for the economy of our own country. They seem not to care about the laws which forbid filling in canisters or how they bring forward environmental crises by driving hundreds of kilometres for refuelling without even thinking about things like the beautiful environment they are driving through on their way to Luxembourg. Since it is bad for the people who live near the gasoline stations, too, we should stop driving lots of kilometres for refuelling at a lower price and start thinking about our state and our environment.