Maltese motorists are paying a high price at the pumps.

The Opposition will today present a motion in Parliament “insisting” that the government immediately reduces the prices of petrol and diesel.

Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil said the government had to lower the prices to reflect the drop in the international price of oil.

The motion will be calling for lower, “reasonable” prices that “reflect the substantial drop” in fuel costs abroad.

Dr Busuttil said that, over the past months, the international price of oil decreased by more than half but the Maltese “still aren’t benefiting from this”.

At the moment, the price of one litre of petrol at fuel stations is €1.42, while diesel costs €1.35 per litre.

These prices, when compared to those in the EU, “are unacceptable to the Opposition”. There were countries where the price had dropped to below €1 a litre.

“The Opposition has been pressuring the government to lower the prices of petrol and diesel but we found a hard-headed government,” Dr Busuttil said.

Despite the PN’s campaign to revise the price of fuel at pumps and reflect international prices, the government has, so far, resisted, arguing that, on a long-term basis, consumers still paid less than their EU counterparts.

Our average price is still lower than the EU

Only yesterday, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat raised the issue when addressing a political activity at the Labour headquarters in Ħamrun, defending his government’s fuel hedging policy.

He described it as an insurance against sudden increases in fuel prices, pointing out that the government began reducing fuel prices before global oil prices started plummeting. Moreover, it had cut the price of petrol six times over the past two years.

He reminded his listeners how the price of oil had decreased by 51 per cent but fuel and energy prices rose by 20 per cent in 2008.

“Our average fuel price is still lower than the average EU price. When our current hedging agreements end in the coming months, the prices will continue decreasing,” he said.

He was referring to the average price calculated over a nine-month period, since last May, when Dr Muscat announced that prices would be locked for the rest of the year. When taking the whole period into account, on average, an EU consumer paid €1.50 per litre for unleaded petrol while Maltese consumers forked out €1.44.

The difference is lower when it comes to diesel, where the average nine-month price stood at €1.36, or 2c per litre below the EU average.

In a statement, the government reiterated that it had reduced fuel prices even before the downward trend in prices and would continue doing so consistently as it had planned, irrespective of the Opposition’s motion.