As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, recently, a session of the Economic and Social Council was held, after which, Minister Tomislav Coric spoke in a statement to the media about the procurement and prices of natural gas, as reported by N1.
He commented on the rise in fuek prices, stating that nobody could have expected such a jump and that the current situation could not have been predicted.
Asked if time had shown that they had made a mistake in choosing a methodology such as the one chosen back in 2016, Minister Tomislav Coric said no, because no one could have predicted the current situation: “Changing the methodology at this time won’t result in anything.”
He said he couldn’t say at this time exactly how much fuel prices would would continue to rise. “I saw in the media that it was 30 percent. The logic is that we’ll have to find funds for that, at the expense of the state budget. If the thesis about the 30 percent increase is correct, it’s equal to about 55-56 million kuna more,” he said.
He reiterated that Croatia and the world is currently in a phase of a huge shock to both fuel and oil prices.
Asked whether or not the Croatian Government had already submitted a request for a review of the arbitration for the INA-MOL shareholder agreement, he said: ”Tomorrow is the deadline for that and the government will react within the deadline. Everything is ready, such requests are usually submitted on the last day of the deadline.”
He touched on Damir Vandjelic’s accusation that the governments acted to the detriment of INA and didn’t react when necessary. He said that he cooperated correctly with Vandjelic when he was a member of the INA Supervisory Board.
“From the things he’d been saying, it seemed to me that he’s been questioning the actions and reactions and processes in the Republic of Croatia and is thus slowly becoming politically engaged, even though he’s been politically inactive all the time. I welcome his political moment and place his comments in the context of his political engagement.”
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