The Energy Minister has still to reply to an invitation by the chairman of the social partners’ advisory council to attend an “urgent meeting” on fuel prices, this newspaper was told.

John Bencini, who heads the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, said yesterday he planned to call the meeting “soon” to discuss the fuel prices in Malta and the situation within the EU.

Contacted by Times of Malta yesterday, Mr Bencini said the MCESD sent a request to Konrad Mizzi on Tuesday but the minister had still to reply.

“As soon as we received the request for a meeting to address this issue, we asked the minister to see whether he can attend the meeting and make a presentation,” Mr Bencini said.

“We have no date yet because we are still awaiting the minister’s reply,” he added.

The Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU on Tuesday made a formal request for an urgent meeting of the MCESD so the government would explain why fuel prices had not dropped, reflecting the low international price of oil.

Later, a similar request was also made by the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association.

While the Nationalist Party is this morning expected to meet members of the MCESD to discuss the issue, the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry yesterday urged the government to lower fuel and utility prices.

Fuel and energy are a significant proportion of overhead costs

According to the chamber, apart from lowering substantially the price of fuel, electricity tariffs should also go down beyond the 25 per cent already discounted to reflect the cheap price of oil.

“Fuel and energy expenses account for a significant proportion of overhead costs and unjustified differences between prices locally and elsewhere are most detrimental to businesses, especially for sectors such as those involved in import and export, freight forwarding, transport and distribution.”

Meanwhile, according to the latest fuel statistics issued by Eurostat, fuel prices in the EU continued to fall (see tables).

Last month, the EU average price of unleaded fuel dropped by 9c a litre as against the 2c in Malta.

The EU average price of diesel also fell substantially during the past month, down from €1.26 to €1.18 a litre. On the other hand, the price of diesel in Malta only dropped by 1c a litre.

The latest statistics show that, compared to the 28 EU member states, this week Malta has the third highest price of unleaded petrol in the EU and the second highest in terms of diesel.

The government has so far refused to lower the price of fuels at pumps arguing that it is bound with a hedging agreement that runs until the end of March.

The government said it would cut prices when the agreement expired.

The PN has launched a campaign putting pressure on the government to lower prices with immediate effect.

It is accusing the government of striking a wrong deal to the detriment of consumers.

How fuel prices compare across the EU