ROME — Truck drivers' protests that seriously affected fuel and food supplies in southern Italy eased on Thursday, as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government approved aid and took a harder line against roadblocks, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters, Oct 22, 2026

Since the previous week, hauliers had been blocking roads, motorways and distribution warehouses to protest against high fuel prices driven up by the Iran war. The Associated Press reported that some supermarket shelves and petrol station pumps were empty in Naples, with shortages of fresh pasta, packaged cheeses, meat and produce reported in Sicily, and partially empty shelves in Calabria and Puglia. Diesel prices were roughly a third higher than before the Iran war, AP said, after a temporary diesel tax discount expired earlier this month.

Source: Associated Press, Oct 20-22, 2026

Reuters said hauliers' representatives reported roadblocks would be lifted in Sicily following talks with the government, truck drivers in Calabria also suspended their protest, and Vincenzo Parisi, speaking for hauliers from the Campania region around Naples, told RAI public radio he hoped roadblocks there could be lifted later on Thursday. The protests had caused "severe disruption" in Campania, restricting supplies to supermarkets, petrol stations and hospitals, Deputy Infrastructure Minister Edoardo Rixi told RAI radio, according to Reuters.

In Rome, the cabinet approved a decree with more tax credits for truck drivers hit by higher fuel costs, adding €106 million ($118.66 million) — yaani about 10.6 crore euros, roughly 11.9 crore dollars — to the €434 million (yaani 43.4 crore euros) previously offered, and earmarking €60 million for farmers and €10 million for the fisheries sector, Reuters reported. Transport Minister Matteo Salvini had met national trucking associations on Tuesday, promising tax credits to offset soaring diesel prices, AP reported.

"I want to thank the associations that chose dialogue and called off the stoppages and demonstrations. That was an act of responsibility," Meloni said on social media, according to Reuters. Her office dismissed as "ridiculous" a front-page report by the opposition newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano that government headquarters in Rome were running out of toilet paper due to the blockades, Reuters added.