President: Slovak Citizens Needn't Worry about Fuel Shortages for Time Being

Bratislava, 2 April (TASR) - Slovak citizens don't have to worry about fuel shortages at the moment, stated President Peter Pellegrini on Thursday following a meeting with Vice-premier and Economy Minister Denisa Sakova (Voice-SD), who briefed him on the state of the fuel market. "Based on information from the economy minister, oil supplies to our refinery are secured today, and we have a guarantee that there should be no production outage," he stated. "I also want to commend the government's decision to address short-term disruptions in oil supplies by declaring a state of emergency concerning oil and providing a portion of Slovakia's oil reserves to the Slovnaft refinery," he said. According to the president, he also agrees with the government's decision to introduce different fuel prices for Slovak and foreign citizens. "It's entirely logical that, as we've been covering the shortage of petroleum products from our own reserves, Slovakia has the right to adopt such a measure on a temporary basis. I repeat, temporary, even though the Slovak Republic is being criticised by the European Commission," emphasised Pellegrini, adding that as the measure is short-term, Slovakia faces no sanctions and he doesn't even fear any, either. am/df