PM reassures Croats they won't feel gas price rise

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday that gas price tariffs would be determined towards the main supplier, the state power provider HEP, that would sell it to other wholesale suppliers in the network and that price formation would be conducted in such a way that Croatians did not feel any price rise.

"I have instructed the competent ministry to invest maximum efforts to avert gas price hikes for households and other users," Plenkovic said on Tuesday, adding that the the gas price would be formed in such a manner that households did not feel any rise.

The premier said that they had found ways to narrow margins on other items regardless of gas pricing trends on the European market.

On Monday, Environmental Protection and Energy Minister Slaven Dobrovic said the government was intensively working on an arrangement that would keep the price of gas for citizens practically unchanged.

The government is expected to decide on the gas price increase this week. It will try to cushion the rise by reducing the share that transit, transport and storage costs have in the price. It will also try to influence the price which HEP pays to the INA energy company for domestic gas. 

The Environmental Protection and Energy Ministry said last week that, without those measures, the price of gas would go up 23% as of April 1 given that the market price is increasing.

Text: Hina

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