The Spanish taxi drivers stopped the last midnight the strike that they maintained after knowing the proposals that the Minister of Public Works, José Luis Ábalos has transferred them, so that the regional governments assume the regulation of the licenses of vehicles of rent with driver (VTC), as those of Uber and Cabify.
The stoppages and protests of this group, which feels threatened by the licensing of VTC services, have kept the center of the main cities of Spain collapsed since last Friday.
Millions of citizens have been affected by these mobilizations that have coincided with the peak season for tourism in the country.
The assembly of taxi drivers in Madrid decided to call it by acclamation before midnight yesterday and the thousands of taxis parked three days ago in the central Paseo de la Castellana have been removed amid cheers from the people who were camped, who celebrated the end of the strike
In a similar and almost simultaneous way, the assembly of taxi drivers in Barcelona has also decided to deconstitute, which has initiated the eviction of the Gran Vía, one of the main arteries of the Catalan city.
Precisely in this city is where the mobilizations began last week, following the precautionary suspension by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia of a regulation of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona to impose a second license to the VTC services.
The desconvocatoria was also agreed in the rest of Spanish cities, according to Efe vice president of employers Antaxi, Jesus Fernandez, after considering that the Ministry of Development has earned "a margin of confidence" to have assumed "what had been requested "by the taxi drivers.
Minister Ábalos met for three hours with the representatives of regional governments on the subject at the National Transport Conference and told them that the Government will enable the possibility of assuming the regulatory capacity of drivers' licenses for transport vehicles (VTC) ).
The minister explained that this is not a transfer of powers, which they already have according to the Constitution for transport within their territory, but to empower a regulatory capacity to communities to regulate the licenses.
Autonomous communities whose governments do not want this regulatory power will continue to be governed by the state framework, Ábalos has clarified.
According to sources of Publicity have explained, the possibility will be enabled by means of a decree-law that will modify the Law of Transports, that will be ready in September.
With the new framework, the communities will be able to transfer part of the regulation to the municipalities, as claimed by those of Barcelona and Madrid, which would include more stringent regulations and even a second activity license.
The communities will be able to change the ratio of one VTC for every thirty taxis that was in force until 2009 and which was reinstated in 2015 for the new license concessions, which has not prevented previous requests, pending in courts, from reducing the effective ratio well below that distribution, although very unevenly from one geographic area to another.
In statements to Efe, the spokesman of the strike committee in Madrid and Secretary General of Caracol Taxi, Saúl Crespo, indicated that their demands have been fulfilled: "the delegation of powers to the communities, the start-up of a web of control and the normative change for a more exhaustive control of the compliance by the VTC of the norms by which they are governed ".
Meanwhile, the National Police investigates more than 60 complaints of physical attacks, vehicle damage, coercion and public disorder against VTC vehicles, mainly Uber and Cabify, and has carried out several arrests during this week.