Skopje, 4 November 2021 (MIA) – There will be no power cuts if the country declares state of energy crisis. At the moment, no issues are reported involving electricity supply, Economy Minister Kreshnik Bekteshi said Thursday. “The crisis is a result of electivity price hikes, which is why we will ask the government at the next session to declare state of emergency over the energy crisis,” Bekteshi told Sitel TV. The government, he noted, will declare state of energy crisis in order to be able to inject funds from the budget into ESM and MEPSO to increase their liquidity. “The Finance Ministry has provided about EUR 100 million to be able to directly intervene into the two companies – MEPSO to cover its debts and ESM to provide coal to produce power,” said Minister Bekteshi. Efforts are currently being made, he explained, to put into operations all domestic capacities to produce electricity to soften price shocks and to prevent the price of electricity for households and small consumers from rising. “Electricity produced at home is estimated at EUR 56-70 per megawatt hour while electricity at world markets is EUR 200 per megawatt hour. The measures we take aim to make sure there is no increase in electricity prices for households and small consumers,” said Bekteshi, adding some of the measures included reduced VAT of electricity as well as the energy poverty program. A new program for at-risk citizens, who are awarded 1,000-denar vouchers as part of the energy poverty program, is being prepared, he announced. “It will provide assistance to 35,000 households in our country,” Bekteshi said.