The fact of occupying Gran Via and Passeig de Gràcia already seems like a trifle to them. Catalan taxi drivers are now well prepared to sow chaos all over Spain, to occupy stations, airports and other key points in the country. The slow march they set up yesterday in the center of Barcelona was nothing more than an ornament to their words, their particular way of emphasizing that they are not joking. In reality, the latest episode of the taxi war is not taking place on the streets, but in offices, in a lot of offices.
"All the big cities in the State are about to explode - Alberto Álvarez, alias Tito, of Élite Taxi, the main association of taxi drivers in the Barcelona metropolitan area, warned yesterday. At the moment the situation is stuck to that of July 2018, when everything broke out and here in Barcelona there was an indefinite strike in the sector which then spread like an oil slick throughout the national territory. I am receiving signals from all the big cities that if we don't have an agreement with the Ministry of Transport by next Tuesday, there will very soon be massive mobilizations throughout the State, at airports, within cities, at stations and wherever necessary. And Barcelona will once again be a point of reference in the struggle of taxi drivers from all over Spain".
Yes, the Catalan taxi drivers' truce is extremely tight. The representatives of these professionals will meet again with those of the Ministry of Transport, as they did the day before yesterday, next Tuesday.
And they hope that by then the Central Government will have already taken the first and most pertinent steps in order to finish transferring to the autonomous communities and local bodies all the necessary powers so that they can shield forever all the restrictions on cars with VTC licences, in rental vehicles with a driver, to those who come to pick you up when you use the applications of Cabify, Uber, Bolt...
All this is a consequence of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that was announced on Thursday. Basically, the decision in question establishes that the administrations cannot restrict the activity of VTCs in order to protect the economic viability of the taxi.
What they can do, on the other hand, is to restrict the activity of VTCs according to other criteria and objectives, such as protecting the environment or improving urban mobility. This sentence refers to a regulation of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB) that is no longer in force, but its jurisprudence is applicable to the rules currently in operation.
And since the texts of the CJEU tend to be as liberal as they are ambiguous... Well, everyone finds a thread to pull on, a thread favorable to their interests. In the same way that taxi drivers are pressuring the Central Government to transfer to the autonomous communities and local bodies the ability to give a coup de grace to their main competitors, the owners of the licenses of the rental cars with drivers and the large digital platforms who lend their applications have right now a legion of lawyers looking for arguments to make politicians see that if they dare to put more sticks in their wheels it is very possible that they will end up breaking the law. In addition, very soon, a lot of VTC license owners will be lining up in court to be allowed back to work, even if it is in a precautionary way, and many will also ask for compensation from the administrations.
Barcelona, the city that hosts ISE, Sónar, Mobile, Primavera Sound and a lot of cruise ships and tourists, is at stake. It is a very juicy cake, the big city where the big digital transport platforms were left with honey on their lips. Here, in this tense tug-of-war, the latest episode of the taxi war is now taking place.
