Agius Saliba wants European Commission to investigate food importers

Agius Saliba said Malta’s size and geographical limitations “led to the formation of de-facto monopolies where a handful of importers dominate entire markets”.

The lack of competition removed the market-driven downward pressure on prices and led to the formation of informal, artificially high, price benchmarks.

This enabled the few large operators to exploit the high inflation rate to increase their already hefty profits, he argued.

Excessive pricing, Agius Saliba said, was an antitrust violation in terms of EU competition law.

It specifically prohibits the abuse of a dominant market position to impose unfair prices on consumers.

Agius Saliba has asked Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to take action, and promised to fight for socially disadvantaged consumers.