The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) and the energy regulator will meet sometime this week in a bid to settle on a formula on how to bring down the price of electricity, the government spokesman said on Monday.

Konstantinos Letymbiotis made the comments to a television channel, on the back of remarks by President Nikos Christodoulides over the weekend.

While attending a function, the president was asked by a journalist about earlier reports according to which he had personally “sternly urged” the EAC to make sure that electricity prices do not rise.

Christodoulides confirmed, saying he had had a meeting “away from the glare of publicity” where he asked that no increases to electricity be imposed at this juncture.

“These are actions one often takes and which are kept out of the media,” he said. “Publicity is not important, what matters is the result, and I think that at this time the EAC should not raise its rates.”

Asked about this, the government spokesman said the two relevant entities – the EAC and the energy regulator – would have a meeting this week on the issue.

It was part of the current administration’s “broader approach to bring down the price of electricity in any way possible”, he added.

“This is the same government which cut VAT on electricity bills from 19 to 9 per cent.”

Letymbiotis said there is a prospect for reductions in the price of electricity, given the drop in oil prices globally.

He said that the state-run power utility and the regulator would make their own assessments “based on the wider direction of the government regarding reductions in the coming time period.”

It was not exactly clear whether the EAC and the energy regulator would in fact meet this week. Contacted by the Cyprus Mail, sources at the EAC would neither confirm nor deny.

Each year the EAC submits its accounts to the Cyprus energy regulatory authority (Cera). The latter looks at the accounts and, based on a formula for the EAC’s ‘legitimate profit margin’, decides what the electricity rates should be.

According to Eurostat data released last week, Cypriots pay the second-highest rates for electricity in Europe when adjusted for spending power.

Only consumers in the Czech Republic paid more for their household energy bills than those in Cyprus, with the former paying 41 purchasing power standard (PPS) per 100 kilowatt hours, while consumers in Cyprus forked out 35.7.