Lithuania will not reduce fossil fuel consumption through taxes

Most countries are doing the opposite. Skaiste told a conference entitled Making Green Finance a Reality in the Baltics in Vilnius that we had the objective of increasing excise duties on fossil fuels prior to that, but now we are taking steps backwards because energy prices are very high.

She said that we are under pressure to do the same, but we won't do it.

The price of gasoline at the pump in Lithuania crossed the two-euro per-liter mark this week.

Reducing fossil fuels and promoting renewable energy sources in Lithuania could be done through taxes, but now is not the right time because of the soaring inflation, according to Skaiste.

In the current situation, the inflation rate in Lithuania is one of the highest in the European Union, so one of the ways we can still do is tax policy, but it would be a difficult way, because it is one of the things we can do, she said.

The green economy is now a priority in Lithuania, but earlier it was more important for the country to achieve energy independence from Russia, which used resources as a tool of pressure, according to Skaiste.

The Minister said that Russia was using the resource as a weapon to put pressure on countries to make the decisions it needed. We used to pay Gazprom more for gas than other countries, so we knew that Russia was using it as a weapon to put pressure on countries to make the decisions it needed.

She said that now we have the freedom to buy energy from anywhere, but at the same time prices on international markets have gone up.