Finance Minister Slavko Linic said on Friday that the government's decision to increase prices of natural gas and electricity was aimed at preserving jobs, but he agreed that the price hikes would affect people's living standards.
"The worst thing is that until investment projects begin, people won't see that all this money will be going towards jobs," Linic told reporters after the government meeting. He was asked how people would make ends meet after gas prices had been increased by 22 per cent and electricity prices by 20 per cent.
"It will be very hard for people to make ends meet, but they are aware that living on debt is no longer possible," Linic said. He said that energy prices should have been increased already by the previous government and that it had brought the country into the present situation by running a "quasi-welfare policy".
When asked if the government would be equally tough on the banks and big business, because the impression was that the government was mainly "hitting" ordinary citizens, Linic said it was not true that only citizens were carrying the brunt of the crisis, adding that the government was also tough on the telecommunications operators and that it would demand that the banks too help the government to recover the economy.
He recalled the 6% tax the government had imposed on the telecommunications operators despite criticisms from the EU, because they were not investing their profits but were taking them out of the country.
"They should know that they should invest the capital they have in jobs, and jobs mean pay and a possibility to cope with realistic prices of energy," Linic said.
