Taxes on gas should be slightly over 40 per cent in Austria - but compared to some other European countries, it's actually bearable.
Oh, one more or less political cause for the high prices are the crude oil sources within western territory. The thing for the USA is, that since 1995 the imports are higher than their own production and this gap gets continuously bigger. In addition to that the rate of newly discovered oil recources compared to the total usage changes too. That means in clear words that the oil recources in the 'western world' will run low or empty centuries before the ones in arabian countries.
Also issues with more and more extrem weather situations are taking influence in gas prices. I've recently read a report on hurrican Emily and that's probably not the only local issue.
