Konjević: Nine increases in fuel prices, and the Government and MFSS are not dealing with the problem

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) will renew its request to the President of the Parliament of Montenegro to urgently schedule a Parliament session to discuss the Law on Excise Taxes and adopt our proposal to reduce excise taxes on fuel, Rasko Konjević, the president of that party, announced today.

"The law, which was proposed by the SDP, has been in the process for almost half a year, and the DF/Democrat/URA coalition does not want to discuss it either in the plenary session or in the parent Committee for the Economy. In the past months, we had as many as nine increases in fuel prices , while no one from the Government, especially the Ministry of Finance and Social Welfare (MFSS), dealt with this problem, which worsens both the economic and social status of citizens and the business conditions for the economy," Konjević pointed out.

He added that SDP, "wanting to solve this problem permanently, proposed at the beginning of the year to reduce excessively high excise taxes by 15%, in order to bring their level to the regional average, significantly reduce prices, and create a mechanism which would protect citizens and the economy from cyclical enormous price increases".

"Excise duties, namely, participate in the price of gasoline and super with as much as 0.54 euro cents per liter, and then 21% VAT is added to the complete price, which makes up almost 60% of the total price of fuel. For one liter of fuel which, after the ninth price increase for half a year, it costs 1,40 euros, the state collects 0,84 euros from citizens for excise duties and VAT. This is an unacceptably high amount, among the highest in the region and Europe. The same is true with diesel fuel, and numerous industries are threatened by this policy , from traffic, through the food industry, agriculture, and there was also a big jump in the prices of basic foodstuffs," said Konjević.

According to him, "fuel prices, in just six months, have increased by about 20%, and citizens, due to the slow and inadequate reaction of the Government and the parliamentary majority, pay the most expensive prices for all types of fuel compared to most regional states".

"Since the beginning of the year, the SDP has been asking the Parliament to discuss the proposal for the Excise Law, but the parliamentary majority refuses to put the proposal on the agenda. For three years, the SDP has been proposing that the Parliament change the excise policy, but the DPS government at the time refused to do so, and now, unfortunately, the new coalition majority DF/Democrat/URA continues the same policy. If you consider that almost 10.000 citizens lost their jobs in just half a year of the new government's mandate, that the unemployment rate has increased by almost 20%, and is now a whopping 24% "The government is obliged to protect the living standards of citizens with its measures. Every fourth citizen does not work, and with this increase in prices, the social position of citizens is most seriously threatened, which requires a quick response from the government, which is unfortunately lacking," said Konjević.