The management of Uber's activity in Gipuzkoa is at a standstill after the Provincial Council of Bizkaia responded to the request from the Donostia City Council to sanction VTC vehicles. The Bizkaia Council informed the Gipuzkoa provincial government that they are the ones with sanctioning power.
In this regard, General Deputy Eider Mendoza has admitted that the multinational's arrival "has raised many legal doubts." Therefore, "we are going to undertake internal and inter-institutional work to avoid discrepancies and clarify the situation."
“"As an institution, we point out that the public service offered until two months ago was insufficient. Having said that, the entry of a new VTC operator has raised many legal doubts, and even different institutions have different interpretations regarding the application, who opens files, who sanctions, and so on."
Given that the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, which issued the licenses operating in Gipuzkoa, refuses to sanction following the "principle of territoriality," Mendoza has indicated that "we are going to do internal work among all institutions to clarify the situation, and once we have clarified it, we will communicate it, but until then we will not make statements." This process of "clarifying the situation" has no deadlines, "but we want to do it as soon as possible."
The current situation is that, two months after Uber's arrival this Saturday, both the Donostia City Council and the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa state that the company "can only make interurban trips," even though the vast majority of the trips they complete are urban, starting and ending in the same municipality. However, given the "great legal complexity," they have not addressed how they can proceed to stop an activity that, in their view, is not covered by law.
