After a protest held on Friday in which drivers stopped their cars for ten minutes to warn about the rising fuel prices, the grassroots movement which launched the protest announced another one for later this week.

The initiative, calling for the government to lower the taxes on fuel and bring the price of a litre of petrol to under 9 kuna, said they planned to repeat the protest on Wednesday, June 20, extending the period of people stopping their cars to an entire hour, starting at 15:30.

They said that the new protest, which they describe as a step towards achieving a cheaper and more sustainable country from which people would not be moving out of in droves, would be much more massive, as hundreds of drivers from all over the country contacted them and expressed support following the Friday protest.

“Police reports say more than 2,500 vehicles took part in blocking roads all over the country on Friday, and this time we expect at least 10,000 cars to be stopped. Although some have complained about the protest, we were contacted by the Finance Ministry and were told they were ready to talk (with us),” the initiative said in a press release.

They added that they are not in charge of organising neither protest points nor drivers. The drivers are self-organised, and assume full responsibility for their actions take part in the protest promoted with the hashtag #ugasimotor (“turn off the engine”).

The initiative called on drivers to leave free a lane for emergency services to use, and also called on pedestrians and cyclists to join the protest by blocking road crossings in cities.

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