Excise taxes aren't untouchable, Finance Minister Zdravko Maric said on Monday when asked by reporters if the government was mulling over the idea of reducing excise taxes to alleviate the impact of price hikes, notably higher fuel prices, on citizens.

Asked whether excise taxes could be corrected and whether excise taxes were untouchable, Maric said that nothing was untouchable.

Excise taxes account for a significant share of fuel prices in Croatia.

“Nothing is untouchable, everything can be subject to discussion. If we believe that that will result in some effects, we are prepared for it,” said Maric, noting that the past few years had shown that nothing was untouchable.

“I wouldn’t want to confirm nor reject any option at the moment,” he underscored.

“We are citizens too. I also go to the store and see what the prices of sunflower cooking oil and other products are,” he said and added that the situation would be followed to see  what the European Commission’s recommendations would be and how the European Union would act.

The problems in global supply chains and transport, the rising prices of raw materials, especially energy, have directly and indirectly led to inflation rates in Croatia and the EU over the past few months being at their highest level since 2012 and 2013, Maric said.

However, he noted that Croatia in no way deviated from the average and that its inflation rate was still around 0.2 percentage points lower than the EU average.