Filipović: There are attempts to deceive citizens, it will not work

Minister of Economy Davor Filipović held a meeting with representatives of trade associations and directors of the largest retail chains in Croatia, after an unjustified increase in prices was noticed since the euro was officially introduced.

"Traders said they would be ruined, nothing happened"

“We spoke with representatives of retail chains about the continuous increase in prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages and about the conversion of the kuna to the euro. Inflation is currently 13.5%, the increase in prices related to food and non-alcoholic beverages has the greatest effect on this,” Minister Davor Filipović pointed out after the meeting, adding that the Government has provided a lot of assistance due to the ongoing crises.

“Retail chains increase their prices from month to month. Now that we are introducing the euro, they are raising prices and trying to deceive Croatian citizens. That won't work for them. When you look, for example, in September, we limited the price of nine basic products. You could hear from the merchants that it would ruin them and that there would be shortages, and none of that happened. As many as seven of those nine products today have a lower price than the maximum. There was competition, prices went down. This is a clear indication that there is room for lowering, and not a continuous increase in prices. Anyone who will try to take advantage of this situation of the transition to the euro will not succeed, we will protect the citizens,” he said.

“I asked them to have one of them answer how it is that fuel prices have fallen, to tell me which of them made products cheaper. Where do we have a drop in retail prices? No one answered that question,” added the minister.

"Possible blacklists, everything is on the table"

He expects that in the coming period they will start reducing prices, and not continuously raise them because, as he says, there is no need for that.

“The State Inspectorate is taking action; they will make a report. There has been an increase in prices, and all other institutions will do their job, all in order to protect the citizens,” said the minister in response to the question of whether the meeting could have been held earlier, given that it was warned that there could be a rounding up of prices.

“We acted in good faith, I believe that they are our partners. We have sent messages; I believe they will find fertile ground. The government has mechanisms to protect citizens. Everything is on the table. From blacklists to freezing a wide range of products. Everything,” said the minister.

State inspectorate in Petrol and Crodux

The traders quickly left the meeting, clearly dissatisfied with what they had heard.

“I believe that we will reach a reasonable agreement, everyone must know that they have to bear the burden of the crisis,” said the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development.

Speaking about the situation in Petrol and Crodux, he said that they don't have any results yet, but that the State Inspectorate is on the terrain.

“They will be on the terrain in the coming days, and as for where else they are going, you have to ask the Chief State Inspector,” concluded the minister.

Traders: We have not raised prices

“Traders did not raise prices. They rounded according to the rounding rules. If the last digit is five or more, then they rounded the second one up. If it is four or lower, then the second decimal place was rounded down, as the government said in the guidelines,” pointed out Martin Evačić, the president of the trade association at the Croatian Trade Union, ahead of the meeting at the Ministry of Economy.

“Today I read on portals that hairdressers have increased the prices of services, that coffee is two euros, but I really don't see what it has to do with retailers,” he added.

He said that suppliers and manufacturers are the main cause of price increases and that this happened before the introduction of the euro.

“We do not go into whether the calculations of manufacturers and distributors are justified or not, but the fact is that it is easy to verify whether the traders have increased their margins. You go into the product tab, you can see exactly the purchase price, margin, VAT and the final price. The fact is that there has been an increase in input costs for producers, both raw materials and energy, etc.,” he pointed out.

Josip Zaher from the Croatian Chamber of Commerce pointed out that a huge amount of work has been done over the last year, especially in the last two days.

“If there was an individual violation of the agreement, I am sorry that the whole process is being tarnished. We should not forget the inflationary pressure of over 13%, and on food and drinks of over 19 or 20%. This caused the price to go up,” he pointed out.

As a reminder, it is suspected that the introduction of the euro was used by many to round prices up. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković announced this on Monday and announced a meeting in the Government.

“I convened a meeting with the competent ministers and representatives of the Tax Administration, Customs Administration and the State Inspectorate regarding further activities to protect consumers from unjustified price increases. The introduction of the euro is not the reason for the increase in the prices of goods and services,” he wrote on Twitter.

Source: HRT