The Labour Party said today that energy prices in Malta had, between December and January, seen the steepest increases in the European Union.

It said that figures issued by Eurostat, the EU statistics office, showed that the price of electricity, gas and other fuels, excluding petrol and diesel) rose by 29 per cent in Malta. Lithuania came second, with an increase of just over 10 per cent. The average increase across the EU was 1 per cent and there were six countries that actually reduced prices.

The PL said that prices in January 2010 were 18 per cent higher than January 2009. This was also the steepest increase in the EU. Fourteen EU countries now had lower prices than in January last year.

The new electricity prices, introduced in January, were 10 per cent higher than the prices introduced by the government in October 2008, when the tariffs should have peaked because the oil price was at $100 a barrel.

The discrepancy in prices with other countries confirmed a statement by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech that the tariffs had risen so that the deficit would not grow any further, rather than to cover the actual oil price, the PL said. The local prices were covering incompetence and mismanagement. Were local prices really linked to the oil price, they would be lower.