A senior British Minister met on Monday with the oil companies to discuss ways of avoiding a repetition of the fuel protests that brought the country to a standstill last week.
The aim of the hour-long meeting, attended by government officials and executives from BP Amoco, Shell, Esso, Texaco
was to find a way of ensuring oil companies maintain their deliveries even when faced with protests.
Government officials said that they discussed putting the oil
companies on the same legal footing as formerly state-owned
utilities, like water and electricity, which have to provide
services during a crisis.
It is a very rash minister who says something will never happen again but what we are working on is a very significant reduction of the risk of this kind of disruptive action, Home Secretary Jack Straw told reporters after the meeting.
Another senior official, chancellor of the Exchequer Gord N Brown, said that the government would not give in to threats by some demonstrators to resume the protests in 60 days if fuel taxes don't come down.
“We are not going to make decisions on the basis of
deadlines such as this,” He told the Times newspaper.
“It is clear no government will or should ever give in to that sort of pressure. It is our duty to ensure that essential services are safeguarded,” He added.
Britain was slowly returning to normal on Monday. While
lines of motorists continued to form outside gas stations, oil
companies predicted that 75 percent of their stations would be
restocked by Monday.
Bureau Report
