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Central Europe
March 16, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 13
should deal with increasing the capacity of the system for granting licences, as Uber requested. “And the memorandum will also include that Uber voluntarily agrees to implement the electronic evidence of sales (EET) system. There will be a protocol between the Financial Administration and the company about reporting their sales,” added Babis on March 8.
Babis stepped in at the end of February when
he sent a letter to Uber asking the company to comply with the law or to consider terminating its services in Czechia.
For representatives of Uber, these regulations are welcomed. “We take the comments from today's meeting very seriously. We are definitely confront- ed with tasks that we have to solve, and we believe that further negotiations will follow in the future as we are committed to doing the right thing for thousands of consumers, for drivers, and for Prague,” said Alexei Stakh, Uber general director for the CEE region.
Stakh also added that he wants to co-operate with Czech cities to make the use of cars more efficient. This should help road transport, reduce cars in the streets, lower pollution and reduce the need for parking lots.
“I am glad that they realise they have been acting illegally for four years," said Krnacova. Transport Minister Dan Tok (Ano) said that it is not accept- able that some drivers continue to drive for Uber without a license. “I would like to push them to immediately stop using unlicensed drivers,” he said. Krnacova said unlicensed drivers could be penalised.
A spokeswoman of the Association of Taxi Con- cessionaires (AKT) said she was sceptical about whether Uber would comply with the agreement and the taxi organisation would be monitoring the situation.
Another group – the Association of the Czech taxi drivers (SCT) – said that Uber and rival car hailing
company Taxify should stop their apps until their drivers meet the lawful requirements. “Contractu- al transport, which [they] want to apply, is outside the law for five years, so it doesn’t exist. Further, only citizens of the Czech Republic can apply for the exam of local geography,” reacted chairman of SCT Petr Polisensky.
Taxi drivers organised several protests in March or February when they slowed down the traffic in Prague. In October 2017, they protested at Vaclav Havel Airport Prague. Violent clashes with Uber drivers have taken place in Prague.
For taxi drivers, Uber is unfair competition
since the company’s drivers don’t have to have
a license, thus they don’t need more expensive compulsory third-party insurance or a taximeter. Overall, they can provide services for less.
Moreover, Uber is also open for foreign drivers, which is not the case for taxi drivers. Many also challenged the regulations for taxi drivers, who have to pass an exam on their knowledge of local geography in an era of online navigation systems.
However, taxi drivers don’t have a good reputa- tion in Czechia and a lot of people are in favour
of Uber. There are cases of taxi drivers massively overcharging foreign customers, bribing police, and acting as a ‘taxi mafia’ in Prague. Their ser- vices are also expensive, so especially for younger people, Uber has become the fast, reliable and online choice.
The regulation of Uber comes amidst an effort to regulate also other services of the shared econ- omy. Higher rents and prices of properties espe- cially in Prague are creating the need to regulate Airbnb. According to the Ministry of Industry, there should be a report in the coming months about how to regulate the shared economy.
Uber in Prague is used by 300,000 people, accord- ing to the company's information. This is a 60% in- crease in the number of customers over the previ- ous year, Prague TV reported.