Small distributors to Plenković: Go ahead and scrap fuel price controls
Association president Boris Podobnik says there was no price surge after liberalization in July 2025 and urges the government to leave it to the market again.
Association president Boris Podobnik says there was no price surge after liberalization in July 2025 and urges the government to leave it to the market again.
The association of small fuel distributors responded on Friday to Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, who, commenting on the current measures, asked: "And if we abolish the fuel measures? What then?" Association president Boris Podobnik summed up the reaction simply: nothing will happen, and the catastrophic scenarios he claims have been used to scare the public for years have no basis in reality. He backs his position with the experience from July 2025, when the government reintroduced market-based pricing for a few months and, in his words, no significant increase was recorded.
Relying on that example, Podobnik insists that prices at the pumps are not dictated by small players, but by the biggest ones, primarily INA and Petrol. "A small petrol station surrounded by pumps of large companies cannot independently raise fuel prices by a few cents per litre because customers would immediately go where it is cheaper," Index.hr quotes the association president as saying. This very dynamic, he stresses, acts as a natural cap on price increases and makes state intervention unnecessary.
The small distributors also warn of a serious flaw in the current regulatory model: wholesale prices change every week, while the government adjusts retail prices every two weeks. When world prices suddenly rise and the domestic retail price remains temporarily frozen, petrol stations are forced to sell fuel at a negative margin. "A case in point was last week, when the loss was about five cents per litre for both diesel and petrol," Podobnik says, adding that they are often thus even below the purchase price, which he considers contrary to the Trade Act.
"It is a paradox that the prime minister accuses distributors of supposedly earning too much, while the government's own model puts us in a situation where we sell fuel below the purchase price," Podobnik told Index.
Because of all this, the association once again demands the complete abolition of fuel price controls. As proof that the market can function on its own, it points to the period after the July 2025 liberalization, when, it says, none of the apocalyptic scenarios announced for years came true. There has been no official reaction from the government to this call so far, and the prime minister's statement has not yet been translated into concrete action.
