Minister: with increasing gas prices in Europe, Latvia should consider creating reserves

Looking at the impact of growing gas prices on Europe, the [Latvian] government should think about ways of creating and managing different material reserves, wrote Latvia’s Minister of Defence Artis Pabriks on Twitter.
The minister also said the Ministry of Defence is already working on solutions.
Law on the State Material Reserves explains that nomenclature of the State material reserves is a list of State material reserves indicating the type and amount of material resources and the ministry for the sectoral needs of which the State material reserves are being created.
State material reserves are used as part of catastrophe management activities, military threat prevention measures, crisis prevention measures, public security measures, national economy mobilization plan’s detailed measures and other important activities.
As previously reported, to compensate the rapid rise of electricity prices, Latvia’s Ministry of Economy has prepared an offer to increase the support volume for all protected groups of users by EUR 10. This includes support for families and poor families, as confirmed by the ministry.
This will require an additional amount of EUR 17.5 million a year from the state budget. The government will need to decide on this.
Minister of Economy Jānis Vitenbergs called a meeting of the National Energy Crisis Centre. During this meeting, representatives of the energy industry reported that raw materials used in the production of electrical energy, natural gas and heating energy in Latvia are sufficient. However, the biggest price changes are observed for electrical energy and natural gas.