Economy Minister Davor Filipovic sad on Thursday production in the Rijeka refinery would restart as announced by the INA energy company, likely at the end of this month or early in May.

INA is investing over €530 million in the upgrade of the Rijeka refinery, which was shut down last November. The works are expected to be finished this month.

Members of the press asked the minister to comment on the European Commission’s letter of notice to Croatia for restricting the export of gas with measures that are incompatible with the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU and the Directive concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas.

Croatia has two months to respond and remove the shortcomings identified by the Commission. In the absence of a satisfactory response, the Commission may decide to first issue a reasoned opinion and, if there are still no results, refer Croatia to the Court of Justice of the EU.

“We are conducting the dialogue with the Commission. They asked some questions which we will answer,” Filipovic said, adding that the essence was that last year over 120,000 Croatian citizens were left without gas.

There was no solution, so we decided to keep Croatian gas in Croatia for them, he said. “The export of gas via the LNG terminal was not prevented. All our neighbours received maximum support from Croatia. We will continue the dialogue with the Commission.”

Asked if he expected the matter might end end up before the EU Court of Justice, Filipovic said he did not. “We did everything that at that moment was reasonable and in line with all legal provisions.”

Asked if that measure might no longer be necessary, the minister said, “We’ll watch market trends and gas prices and the situation in general. However, we must be alert because the Russian aggression is still on and as long as there is an energy crisis, we must take account of that.”