The VTC will be able to continue circulating in the Community of Madrid from October 1. A deadline that marked the ‘Ábalos decree’ of 2018 for the autonomies to regulate this sector, after the serious conflict that ended by transferring the problem to the territorial leaders.
Yesterday, the regional Assembly approved the project for the Planning and Coordination of Urban Transport, in the midst of a great controversy due to the protests of part of the taxi sector, which interrupted the plenary session with shouts, and concentrated in the vicinity of the Chamber regional. A malaise that contradicts the concessions that the Government of Ayuso is going to make to this group so that they can coexist with the VTC, sources from the Madrid Executive have assured ABC.
These concessions are fewer obstacles and fewer fees for them to carry out their work, as well as fewer time restrictions.
The legislative initiative that went ahead yesterday with the support of the 65 deputies of the Popular Group, and thanks to the abstention of Vox, is not a definitive solution, but only the first step, which will be completed with the drafting of a regulation in the next months.
Precisely, the regulations and the formula chosen by the Popular Party, a single reading without accepting amendments, were the two points of disagreement between the Ayuso government and the opposition as a whole, including Vox.
In the case of the regulation, the Ministry of Transport has been negotiating its content with Vox, while, at the same time, it held talks with representatives of the taxi sector. Likewise, the Abascal formation has also met with the taxi drivers, in order to collect their demands and be able to reach a consensus solution not to vote together with the left and reject the law promoted by Ayuso.
Despite having the agreement closed, the Vox spokeswoman, Rocío Monasterio, stated minutes before the plenary session began that they hoped to be able to complete the negotiations with the Minister of Transport, David Pérez, throughout the morning. With this pronouncement she left in the air the sense of the vote of her group and the possibility of knocking down the PP project. The confusion in the popular ranks increased with the intervention of the representative of Vox, who even went so far as to express his fear that the popular ones would draft a regulation like that of Ada Colau, to affirm minutes later that an agreement had been reached with the PP.
The sources consulted by ABC point out that many of Vox’s proposals to incorporate into the regulation that the Government already has are the same ones that Ayuso already had in his portfolio, since both have contacted those affected, transferring the same claims to them.
The confrontation between the VTC and the taxi drivers was transferred yesterday to the government control session and to the parliamentary debate. Ayuso, in response to the spokeswoman for Más Madrid, Mónica García, stated that “all models can coexist here”: “I am not going to tell the citizens that the VTCs are over. I want the best for the taxi, but I want all the models to coexist because here you are not going to go on a donkey, as you want and as your friend Colau does».
From Podemos, the parliamentary process is considered an “outrage” as a single reading and an attempt to “legitimize the law of the jungle” to “favor foreign companies.” The PSOE denounced what it considers an “opaque agreement” reached by the PP with Vox.
Finally, Más Madrid accused Isabel Díaz Ayuso of “ruining” the taxi sector and affirmed that what she is doing is “nonsense after nonsense” without interest “in talking or regulating.”
