Entrepreneurship Minister Darko Horvat speaks about Croatia’s energy policies.
Croatia currently has a relatively secure supply of energy, and if it succeeds in the next few years to build competitive production sources, especially of electricity, then it will become a competitive country, create an environment for new investments, and provide a competitive price of energy, said on Tuesday Entrepreneurship Minister Darko Horvat, reports Večernji List on September 27, 2016.
“We should offer to every entrepreneur certain comparative advantages, and one of them is a competitive energy price. That is our strategic goal”, said Horvat ahead of the Energy Market Forum conference in Zagreb. He added that the state would retain a regulatory mechanism for energy prices for a short while. “The government which was in power before us made unilateral decisions to increase prices. I do not know why we could not use similar political decisions to reduce prices. We have to retain a way for the state to have the ability to move energy prices in the interest of the Croatian economy”, said Horvat.
“We need to design a model within which earnings made by energy companies will be used for new investments, with the aim of building competitive production facilities where energy will at least to some extent be produced in sufficient quantities for the needs of citizens and businesses. If we succeed in that, then we will become successful and a partly independent nation and country”, said Horvat, adding that, when a large part of energy needs are covered on a liberalized market, then it is impossible to make any long-term plans about prices.
“Renewable energy is the energy of the future, but in a balanced energy mix in which it is necessary to have a variety of manufacturing technologies in order to ultimately have a competitive price. If you use a variety of subsidies, which are paid from the budget or in some other way, to stimulate such production, at one point the system will break”, said Horvat. “I believe that we need a system of renewable energy sources, but also the system of basic energy production.”
“The moment when the energy sector becomes a strategic branch of the Croatian economy and we have a true energy market in Croatia, when energy becomes one of market goods, then we will get our chance”, concluded Horvat.
