Great news from Spain (article in French) :
* Mandatory pre-booking in advance (6 to 12 hours) for PHVs/Uber
New Law voted before 25th January & promulgated before 05th April 2019
* Lawmakers drafted the Law in such a way that it'll be impossible to invalidate
Article below from ‘Le Petit Journal’ translation from French to English uncensored.
If you thought the Uber and Cabify conflict had been resolved, it's far from being the case. The Generalitat will adopt in the coming days two decrees of laws sharply limiting Uber and Cabify in Catalonia. This new regulation could lead to their permanent closure.
The Generalitat is in the process of bringing the hardest blow of recent years to the companies VTC Uber and Cabify. According to the documents to which Teknautas - the technological magazine of the daily newspaper El Confidencial - had access, the government will approve in the coming days two new decrees that will modify the Catalan transport law and impose a new limitation on the activity of the VTC companies. It will be necessary to reserve your Uber or Cabify vehicle between 6 and 12 hours in advance. The measure promoted by the Transport Advisor, Damià Calvet, could announce the final closure of both applications in Catalonia. As acknowledged by a manager of VTC El Confidencial, "no matter they require 6, 12 or 24 hours of pre-contract, they ask for one, we are dead."
Two new decrees of laws
This is the biggest taxi victory in Spain since the closure of UberPop in 2014. The Generalitat finalizes the approval of two new decrees of laws that will be approved before January 25. One of these decrees authorizes all municipal councils of the autonomous community to regulate the VTC; the other authorizes the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB), an organization with its own regulations. The AMB technicians, under the auspices of Ada Colau, have finalized with the Generalitat the strategy to follow to prevent the new measures from being legally rejected.
In an internal document of the AMB dated January, the organization recognizes that there is a "commitment of the Generalitat of Catalonia to approve a decree-law transposing as quickly as possible to the Catalan legislation the new standards in transport passengers and passenger vehicles ".
AMB internal document on new VTC restrictions
The main obstacle imposed by the Generalitat is the need to contact an Uber or Cabify at least 6 hours in advance. The final number of hours is not yet confirmed, but it will not be less than six and probably not more than 12 hours, even if taxis claimed 24 hours. But that's not all. Cars and services provided by each car must include an electronic device with which they will send their movements and services at any time.
New restrictions in anticipation
The AMB will also include new restrictions on VTCs (which remain to be defined) for environmental reasons, as well as requirements for employment contracts and social security. "It will be necessary to determine other conditions of service: the setting up of weekly days of rest, the schedules, the recording of the services, the preconditions to the outsourcing and the transparency of the applied rates", indicates the document.
VTC threatens the MWC
Given the imminent regulation of the Generalitat, the VTC sector recognizes that this measure would mark the end of its operations in Catalonia. "It's infinitely worse than the October decree, so far we've had at least four years' margin, so we've died in Catalonia, and we need to see how we're going to react, but for everything the world one thing is clear: the World Mobile Congress can be paralyzed by 1,000 taxis but also by 3,000 VTC cars.If the only answer of the administrations is the blackmail, we do not exclude this way either ", explains a person in charge of the sector who asks for anonymity.
With these measures, the Generalitat would become the first political organization to get its hands on the most sensitive problem of the "taxi war". And she does it with a major legal asset. Because it would be very difficult to overturn this regulation in court. "By doing this by law-decree, they are changing the new requirements to the status of law and there is only one possibility to challenge them: to refer them to the Constitutional Court, which eliminates the possibility of precautionary measures, and could try to challenge the number of hours, not the law itself.In other words, as soon as they come into effect, they kill Uber and Cabify, "says a lawyer in the sector.
Everything seems ready. The government plans to approve the two new decree-laws in the coming days. AMB, for its part, expects to have drafted its own by-law with all the details by January 25th. It will be the subject of a public consultation during the month of March, after which it will be definitively approved in April. If after the 'decretazo' of Ábalos last October, there remained four years of life at the VTC, they have only three months left in Catalonia. And the question is: what will the other regions do, especially the Community of Madrid, Andalusia and the Valencian Community? If the "Colau regulation" set the sector on fire in 2018, the Generalitat has just lit another, with far more serious consequences.
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