“Fuel prices on the global market cannot be influenced by anyone, not even Croatia. Last week and this week fuel prices went up. We will wait today to see when trading closes. We will make some calculations over the weekend and then make decisions at the beginning of next week,” Filipović told reporters when asked if the government is ready to react again to address the fuel price hike.
He recalled that last week the government decided on an additional reduction of excise duties by HRK 0.40 for petrol and HRK 0.20 for diesel fuel. The decision also reduced the trade margin by HRK 0.10 and limited the formation of prices to every two weeks.
“All of this has resulted in us having significantly lower prices in the past two weeks than we would have had if we had not reacted two weeks ago,” said Filipović.
Asked by reporters if a new reduction in excise duties could be expected, he said all options would be considered.
“We will see over the weekend, we will consider absolutely all the options. As for excise duties, there is room when referring primarily to petrol and that reduction can be another HRK 0.36 and HRK 0.16 for diesel to reach the minimum level according to European directives. We are living in uncertain times. All options are open. We are constantly monitoring the situation and when we see what the situation will be like we will make some decisions,” he said.
When asked why the price of fuel in Croatia is higher than in countries in the region, he said he would not agree. “When you look at Eurostat’s figures, we are somewhere in the middle in comparison to EU member states,” he said.
The last time the government reacted to the fuel price hike was on 6 June, when it further cut excise duties on petroleum products – an additional HRK 0.40 per litre for petrol, or a total of HRK 0.80, and for diesel fuel by an additional HRK 0.20 or a total HRK 0.40 all up. The government then reduced the margin to distributors by an additional HRK 0.10 – for petrol and diesel fuel from the current HRK 0.75 to HRK 0.65 and from HRK 0.50 to HRK 0.40 for blue-dyed diesel.
A government decision ten days ago introduced a 14-day accounting period and since then the price of fuel is changed every two weeks, and not every week as it was until then.
