The European Commission called to establish what the US company is about in order to put to an end the dispute risen in the EU
by Emanuele Bonini
Is Uber a service provider or a transport company? That is the question. The European Union still has not an answer and is working in order to find it out, living "the Uber affair" like an Hamletic drama. After formal complains from Germany, France and Spain, more directorates-general are studying the case. Competition, Internal market and Transport are the three main DG involved, but no steps forward have been made since the European Commission started to deal with the "Uber revolution". In June 2014 the EU said technological evolution is inevitable, and every body has to taking into account. We are referring to the old European Commission, although with a new college of commissioners situation didn't change. On the contrary, it turned from bad to worse since Uber denounced France, Germany and Spain for having blocked any activity on their ground. As a result a huge legal war is ongoing in Europe, with the European Commission called to be the judge of this dispute. The US company stated national governments in France, Germany and Spain have been acting since the beginning in order to safeguard the traditional monopoly represented by common taxi drivers. It can't be a surprise, since taxi drivers are obliged to get a licence in order work, and these licences - granted by public authorities - are not for free. Uber works with a completely different system: there are no licences, but people offering transfers from a part of the city to another one. Still, traditional taxi drivers are request to have car responding to specific safety standards, and is unclear whether the same standards exist for Uber. Anyway Uber is trying to play the card of the e-booking: the strategy is to convince that the US company is offering the same service of the rail or air ticket websites. People in Brussels are at work in order to lead the situation to an end, once and for all. And it still remain to understand whether Uber can affect the TTIP negotiations that Europe and the United Stated are carrying out.
Is Uber a service provider or a transport company? That is the question. The European Union still has not an answer and is working in order to find it out, living "the Uber affair" like an Hamletic drama. After formal complains from Germany, France and Spain, more directorates-general are studying the case. Competition, Internal market and Transport are the three main DG involved, but no steps forward have been made since the European Commission started to deal with the "Uber revolution". In June 2014 the EU said technological evolution is inevitable, and every body has to taking into account. We are referring to the old European Commission, although with a new college of commissioners situation didn't change. On the contrary, it turned from bad to worse since Uber denounced France, Germany and Spain for having blocked any activity on their ground. As a result a huge legal war is ongoing in Europe, with the European Commission called to be the judge of this dispute. The US company stated national governments in France, Germany and Spain have been acting since the beginning in order to safeguard the traditional monopoly represented by common taxi drivers. It can't be a surprise, since taxi drivers are obliged to get a licence in order work, and these licences - granted by public authorities - are not for free. Uber works with a completely different system: there are no licences, but people offering transfers from a part of the city to another one. Still, traditional taxi drivers are request to have car responding to specific safety standards, and is unclear whether the same standards exist for Uber. Anyway Uber is trying to play the card of the e-booking: the strategy is to convince that the US company is offering the same service of the rail or air ticket websites. People in Brussels are at work in order to lead the situation to an end, once and for all. And it still remain to understand whether Uber can affect the TTIP negotiations that Europe and the United Stated are carrying out.
No comments:
Post a Comment