Economy Minister, Davor Filipovic, said on Thursday that the government's "year-long postponement of a regulation on the amount of the fee for water use" and its previous interventions, for instance, electricity price discounts, were "sufficient reasons for towns not to increase water prices."

“There is no need for it (higher water prices). We are now living in a time of crisis,” said Filipovic, explaining that the Zagreb local authorities’ plan to increase water bills is “ill-timed.”

“You can see that the budget of the City of Zagreb, which will soon be outlined, amounts to 16.6 billion kuna, and it is the largest to date. Zagreb city authorities say that the city’s finances have been stabilized, so I wonder why anybody would increase water bills for citizens by 20 percent in such situation,” he said at a news conference after the government’s session.

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Filipovic was the ruling HDZ party’s candidate for Zagreb mayor in the last local elections held in May 2021, where he finished fourth with 9.8 percent of the vote, well behind the current mayor, Tomislav Tomasevic from the Green-Left Bloc with 45.1 percent. He was appointed government minister in Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic’s cabinet in April 2022.

During the government session on Thursday Filipovic said that the state-mandated new water fee was moved from 1 January 2023 to 1 January 2024, “in order to protect the standard of living of citizens and avert some price increases that have been announced.” The fee, paid by local water companies, including municipal utility firms, is expected to increase.

“Apart from that postponement, the government also adopted some other measures to facilitate the functioning of local authorities,” Filipovic said.

“For instance, the latest relief scheme from earlier this year makes it possible for the City of Zagreb to have its electricity bills reduced by 116 million kuna per month from 1 November 2022 to 31 March 2023, which means that the total saving is 580 million kuna in that period,” Filipovic told his colleagues in the televised meeting.

“The local authorities should take into consideration these schemes and other aid provided by the government for the city of Zagreb and abandon their plan to increase water bills,” said Filipovic.