In 2027, an election year, the taxi lobby in southern Gran Canaria will have to find other avenues for lobbying or reinvent itself. The Third Section of the Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal filed jointly by the Gran Canaria Island Council and the Canary Islands Regional Taxi Federation (FEDETAX). The ruling invalidates the numerical cap that prevented the mass issuance of new ride-hailing licenses, definitively opening the island market to the entry of two hundred new vehicles.
The legal dispute centered on determining whether the status of the Canary Islands as an outermost region (ORP), combined with its special territorial characteristics, justified the quantitative limitation stipulated in article 79 quinquies of Law 13/2007, introduced by Law 9/2014. This regulatory framework blocked the granting of VTC licenses when the restrictive ratio of one authorization for every thirty taxi licenses on the island was exceeded.
The High Court ruled that the outermost region status and the geographical or environmental constraints cited by the Island Council do not sufficiently demonstrate that the quantitative restriction is an appropriate and consistent measure for traffic management and the protection of public space. According to the court ruling, this excessive limitation violates the freedom of establishment recognized in Article 49 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) because it lacks a proportionate justification based on the public interest.
For its part, the island corporation had based its defense on the argument that the one-to-thirty ratio was strictly based on reasons of social cohesion, transport management, and the territory's carrying capacity in light of the challenges of insularity and population density. However, the company Senza 2020 SL, a party to the proceedings, refuted the appellants' arguments, stating that the regulation violated the principles of non-discrimination and proportionality within the European Union, citing previous case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union on the matter.
The practical implications of the court ruling transform the transportation infrastructure in the main tourist hub of southern Gran Canaria. The municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, the epicenter of transport demand in key locations such as Maspalomas and Playa del Inglés, will now directly accommodate the operations of fleets linked to multinational platforms like Uber and Cabify. Until now, the traditional taxi fleet exclusively managed passenger flow in an area characterized by a high density of international visitors.
The addition of 200 new chauffeur-driven vehicles increases the availability of private transportation in an island market that receives more than 2,6 million foreign passengers annually at Gran Canaria Airport. The court ruling opens the door to a forced restructuring of the local taxi sector, which operated under municipal licenses with protected asset value.
The annulment of the legal limit of one to thirty vehicles invalidates the Island Council's strategy of containing the vehicle fleet through capacity decrees. The massive influx of two hundred VTC (private hire vehicle) licenses managed by Senza 2020 SL reactivates administrative processes that had been stalled for years in the Island Council's transport department. The execution of the court ruling obliges the Gran Canaria Island Council to formally process the issuance of these licenses, paving the way for a new model of free and fair competition in pricing and operations on Gran Canaria's roads.
