Serbia is the only country in Europe that has opted to stimulate households to save energy, said Serbia’s Mining and Energy Minister Zorana Mihajlovic, adding that other countries have introduced fines that go up to 750 Euro in France and 3,000 Euro in Italy, Fonet reported.

Mihajlovic told TV Prva that the Government is not planning power cuts, that it is importing electricity and trying to ration its use.

“If we really want to survive this winter, we have to save a little,” said Mihajlovic, adding that the state has spent almost one billion Euro on electricity and gas imports and that it is difficult to say how much more will be spent until end of March because prices keeps changing.

The Minister explained that the current price of electricity is 400 Euro per megawatt-hour and that, just a few days ago it was 730 Euro. „The most optimistic estimates say that we will give at least two billion Euro until the end of March, I can’t even talk about the pessimistic ones,“ said Mihajlovic.

She said that household electricity consumption is approximately 42 percent of the total electricity consumption which is why the state wants to stimulate its citizens to ration the use of electricity.

“I believe the Finance Ministry will come up with an electricity-saving proposal in the next five to seven days,” said Mihajlovic.