Malta's petrol market is a state-run monopoly which warrants a European Commission investigation, the Partit Demokratiku has said. 

In a letter to European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, PD leader Anthony Buttigieg highlighted the power state-owned Enemed Ltd. had in the sector, with it being the sole company importing, storing and selling petrol in Malta. 

"Unlike consumers in other Member States, Maltese consumers have no choice, and no idea what brand of petrol or diesel they are purchasing," Dr Buttigieg wrote. "The price of petrol and diesel is exactly the same in the whole island."

Much of the problem, Dr Buttigieg argues in his letter to Commissioner Vestager, is that the state and state-owned companies own practically all of the country's fuel storage facilities. 

"Enemed can change the storage fees at will. There is no security of tenure. Enemed could terminate the storage leases at will," Dr Buttigieg wrote, saying foreign oil companies were unwilling to invest, knowing that the competition could pull the rung from under them. 

READ: Enemed refuses to divulge its profit margins

The government has said that Enemed will be upgrading its storage facilities over the coming years, as part of a €50 million project, and in his letter Dr Buttigieg asks why these proposed facilities have not been offered to foreign companies keen to invest locally. 

Dr Buttigieg's letter seeks to draw the European Commission's attention to a matter which it had first looked into shortly following Malta's EU accession. 

Prior to the mid-1970s, Malta operated a liberalised fuel marketplace, with companies such as BP, Esso and Shell all importing and selling petrol and diesel locally. 

That all changed when then-Prime Minister Dom Mintoff nationalised the sector in the 1970s, and subsequent governments quioetly kept that state monopoly in place. 

When Malta joined the EU, it agreed to liberalise the market by 2006. But it failed to do so, prompting the Commission to take the Maltese government to the European  Court of Justice. The government quickly reacted by introducing laws allowing operators to apply for licenses in the sector, satisfying the EU Commission. 

PD leader Anthony Buttigieg (left) has urged EU Competition Commissioner Margaret Vestager.

But market liberalisation has failed to materialise in the ensuing years, with all petrol still sold at rates established by Enemed. 

While Malta's diesel market has ostensibly been opened up to third party operators, in reality it too is highly controlled, with diesel prices still fixed by try the government and sold at one fixed price throughout the country. 

The Commission, Dr Buttigieg wrote, had been "naive and precipitous" in closing infringement proceedings back in 2007, since the new legislation had not solved practical barriers to market liberalisation.

Dr Buttigieg also had some damning words for the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority, saying it was "fully aware" about the lack of competition in Malta's fuel markets but "useless" at protecting Maltese consumers.