Taxi España

At the end of the conference, the Commission received a suggestion from the Spain delegation to leave it up to the local authority to determine whether it wanted to take charge of the issue of VTC (Chauffeur Vehicle) licences, under which firms such as Uber and Cabify work. "It is a technological stop, a ceasefire; if we have to go back on the road in September or October, we will," said Julio Sanz, leader of the Antaxi Federation, to the hundred taxi riders who have been camped since Monday on the Paseo de la Castellana in front of the Ministry of Public Works, where the gathering took place.

Taxi riders clear the Gran Via in Barcelona, but also call the move "a ceasefire". The Minister for Public Works, José Luis Ábalos, met with the Heads of State and Government of the region on Wednesday to debate a new legal structure that would give the latter competences on municipal transport, which is currently the responsibility of the State.

It would be possible for local administrations to take on this new role or not. They were either suspicious or unsympathetic to the suggestion of the federal administration to delegate to them. There was a general sense that Madrid was looking for an emergency and that it had not specified how the current laws could be enforced, which state that only one VTC licence may be issued for every 30 taxi licences.

That was one of the major requirements of the taxi industry. Spain currently has 9,366 VTCs and 65,277 taxis, a 1:7 proportion. The highest number of ride-hailing cars in Madrid is 4,308, followed by Barcelona with 1,363. As the taxi industry has said, regardless of who has the clout over the issue, the most important thing is that this agency will impose limitations on VTC licences.

Taxidrivers prefer to delegate authority to locals, as the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, has done recently, trying to cut carpooling in the Barcelona area. This step was contested by the CNMC, the national authority responsible for monitoring unfair practices, and, at first, by the Ministry of Public Works (which later withdrawn its appeal), and the Higher Provincial of Catalonia rescinded the Barcelona rules because they interfered with the legal rights of the State.

Barcelona's taxi industry reacted with an unlimited Saturday strikes. Stagnation then extended to Madrid, Valencia, Alicante, Seville, Málaga, Zaragoza and several communities in the Basque Country and La Rioja. Large streets in Madrid and Barcelona were obstructed by taxis whose riders spent whole day in camps and in their cars.

"Local laws must make it clear that municipalities have a vested right to directly govern VTC operations," said Tito Álvares, Élite taxi spokesperson and protester. Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona, the towns led by left-wing government, have welcomed the taxi sector's requests with sympathy.

In spite of the fact that they have blockaded large roads in all three towns without applying for permission for a mass protest, the municipal government has neither coerced them nor sanctioned them. Unauto, the federation of bicycle-hailing enterprises, has protest against this position. Restaurant and shops on congested roads in Barcelona have been complaining about a decline in turnover since the start of the strikes.