The government keeps changing its mind on whether to take control of gas supplies to households.
Prime Minister Robert Fico said first that the state is interested in gas business – and a bigger stake in the SPP gas utility than the current 51 percent percent - but later his intentions became less clear, the Sme daily wrote in its August 30 issue.
Most recently, Economy Minister Tomáš Malatinský has again championed the opinion that the state could buy the remaining 49 percent of shares in the SPP section that supplies natural gas to consumers. The cabinet is to make the final decision by September 30. The estimate price of the additional stake is €60 million, according to the daily. Since beginning of this year, those shares have been in the hands of Energetický a Prúmyslový Holding which gave the state the option to buy the shares when it purchased the shares from German and French stakeholders.
Malatinský confirmed SPP’s household natural gas section makes losses amounting to well over 10 million euros each year.
