The Nationalist Party said this morning that the price of petrol should be 22 cents per litre less, and that of diesel should be 30 cents lower. This is based on the current price of oil on the international market.

Addressing a press conference, PN deputy leader Mario de Marco said that the price of oil is at its lowest point since 2010, but whereas the prices of the commodities abroad had dropped by as much as 22 per cent, in Malta the reduction was on 1.4% for diesel and 2% on petrol.

The Labour Party had promised that it would lower the price of fuel when elected, but this has not happened. Dr de Marco said that the government had kept the prices high as an indirect tax on the people, with which it was then sustaining the lowering of the electricity tariffs.

Dr de Marco said that this situation was affecting Malta's competitiveness because industrial production had gone down by 7%, the highest rate in the European Union.

PN energy spokesman George Pullicino said that it is also ironic that the Labour Party was considering the introduction of night tariffs, when before the election the PL had ridiculed the proposal that had then been made by the PN.

This means that the Labour government's energy plan had failed, and it was turning to the proposals that the PN had made because they made sense.

PN spokesman for finance Tonio Fenech said that the government was using the high prices it was maintaining on fuel to make up for its failure in finishing the new gas-fired power station at Delimara. Labour had linked the reduction of electricity prices with the new plant, but since this had not even started to be built, let alone finished, it was keeping the price of fuel higher than it should be to make up for its power station failure.