A slow march of taxi drivers has clogged the traffic in a good part of the center of Barcelona all morning this Tuesday. The demonstration was held in protest against the sanction of some 123,000 euros that the Catalan Competition Authority (ACCO) has imposed on Élite Taxi for, in their opinion, boycotting Uber and other VTC platforms.
The mobilization, smaller than other previous ones in this sector, had the participation of more than 500 vehicles according to its organizers and 255 according to the Urban Guard, which left at ten from Plaza Espanya and ended in front of the Parliament, in the park. from the Ciutadella, at noon.
During the day, new actions were announced, the first being a strike and a rally on Gran Via on September 11, where the demonstration called by the ANC is expected to pass. "We are not going to stop, today we have called a slow march but on September 11 we are going to put all the taxis on the entire Gran Via, because it is a day to claim rights and freedoms," said the leader of Elite Taxi, Tito Álvarez, who advanced that they have planned "many mobilizations, which will go from less to more" because, he emphasized, "before they kill us, we kill whoever."
The protest, in addition to closing the streets through which it passed (Gran Via, Balmes, Pelai, Plaza Catalunya, Fontanella, Urquinaona, Trafalgar and Lluís Companys) to traffic, affected a large number of roads that cross them, generating long queues. Bus lines also had to be diverted.
Elite Taxi, the main organization of taxi drivers, denounced in a statement that the ACCO acts “like a political court, in the style of the people's court of the Nazi regime, which set up farces in which the sentences were known in advance.” The penalty imposed on him, exactly 122,910 euros, “represents more than three years of income from the association, which is equivalent to de facto beheading it,” he said.
The protest had the support of CC.OO. Its general secretary, Javier Pacheco, who was at the march, described the sanction imposed by the ACCO on Elite Taxi as “totally unfair”, because, in his opinion, “it puts free market competition ahead of the fundamental rights of the citizenship".
The mobilization ended in Parliament because Élite Taxi has unsuccessfully demanded that a commission from the chamber investigate the “Uber Files” in Catalonia, which, in their opinion, would include the actions of the ACCO. And it has focused on its president, Roger Loppacher – the taxis participating in the protest stuck fake hundred-dollar bills with his face in the center on their windows – and the general director, Susanna Grau.
Álvarez announced that a criminal lawsuit will soon be filed against both for prevarication, bribery, favorable treatment and influence peddling. “We want to denounce that a Catalan institution is repressing us with a fine that nobody understands,” said Álvarez. This action will be added to others already initiated (a contentious-administrative action to request precautionary measures against the ACCO fine and another appeal before the TSJC appealing to the right of freedom of expression). The protest had a stop in front of the headquarters of this organization, in Via Laietana, where a firecracker was set off.
The intention of d'Élite Taxi was for the protest to end with a statement from the lectern of the Parliament press room. Álvarez regretted that no parliamentary group invited them to do so. So the demonstration was terminated outside the building. The organization did not meet with any political representative because, he recalled, "everyone already knows what we want."
The ACCO determined that at the end of 2020 it “undertook a pressure campaign” so that taxi drivers in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area would not work with the Uber platform and spread a “negative and discrediting image” of the American multinational. In addition, he accused the aforementioned organization of coercing taxi drivers through “social networks, its website or direct calls” to “warn them of the negative consequences of working” with the aforementioned firm.
