The ministry's officials did not give statements after the meeting.

The Croatian government and the Hungarian oil company MOL signed on Wednesday the first annex to the Gas Master Agreement, which among other things also regulates terms and models of defining prices of natural gas for tariff buyers, including households, as well as preferred buyers.

On that occasion, the government said that how much the price of natural gas would rise for end-users, including households, would depend on gas distributors. The government entrusted the Economy Ministry with "discussing, within eight days, with gas distributors in Croatia, the lowest possible price of gas distribution for industrial consumers and households".

Representatives of the distributors concerned said today that they could not shoulder the burden of the announced rise in the price at which they buy gas from INA, from HRK 1.32 to HRK 1.65 per cubic metre. This increase is to take effect on 1 January 2010. The government has undertaken to adopt, within a reasonable period of time, a decision on an increase in tariff prices.

Under the annex, the government has pledged to adopt a decision whereby gas storage costs, which are currently paid by INA, would be transferred onto end-users by 1 January 2010 at the latest.

The head of the Croatian Gas Experts' Association, Miljenko Sunic, said that distributers and other gas suppliers insisted that there was no room for any reduction of the distribution margin, and that "the gas price for end-users must increase as much as the value of input parameters increases".

He dismissed media speculation that gas prices for households could rise to amount to more than HRK 3 per cubic metre as of the new year.

The proposals for new gas tariffs must be approved by the Croatian Energy Regulatory Agenncy (HERA) and the Economy Ministry, and it is the government that has the final say on the matter.