There's a place where tourism isn't an industry: it's a means of survival. Where traffic isn't regulated, it's negotiated. Where the taxi isn't just transportation, but economy, tradition, and resilience. That place is called Maspalomas, the tourist epicenter of southern Gran Canaria, and today it's also a battleground between the old and the new, between the municipal license and the European algorithm.
Professor Alejandro Román Márquez's recent work, published in the Revista General de Derecho Administrative, puts into sharp focus what many already suspected: that the regulation of passenger transport in Spain has, in recent years, been dictated more by Brussels than by Madrid, and considerably less by the local councils that risk their living at every taxi rank.
The European Union, with its rhetoric of a single market and fair competition, has been imposing a technocratic logic on a traditionally local ecosystem. Taxis, a service of general interest and a quasi-institutional figure on Spain's tourist coast, have been surrounded by VTCs and digital platforms, which are ignorant of geography, local culture, or patron saint festival times. And in places like Maspalomas, where hotel and airport transfers are part of the community's sentimental GDP, this is no small detail.
European law states it—and the doctrine cited by Román Márquez confirms it—that services like Uber and Cabify are not public transportation, but rather private intermediation services. This seemingly innocuous categorization has opened the door for them to compete without assuming the public service obligations that taxi drivers have been burdened with since the days when Google was just a household word.
But what does all this mean on the street, on the asphalt? In rural areas of the island, where tourists don't arrive and young people leave, this discussion sounds like an academic debate. There aren't even taxis. In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the tension is felt in union and bureaucratic terms. But in Maspalomas, where every tourist is a transaction in motion, the issue is pure economic muscle. Here, taxi drivers are playing for the season, not a doctoral thesis.
The paradox is that, despite everything, tourists continue to rely on taxis. Perhaps because they represent security, proximity, a certain sense of order. But also because, ultimately, there's no algorithm that can replace the gesture of a driver who knows every corner, every school bus schedule, every trick of the trade when entering a hotel to avoid a bus line.
That doesn't mean the battle has been won. On the contrary: VTCs continue to gain ground, sheltered by pre-booking, premium vehicles, and the promise of modernity. And Brussels is giving no respite: its logic of competition at all costs is gradually dismantling the legal wall that for decades protected taxis as an essential public service.
The conclusion? That the conflict between taxis and VTCs isn't just legal or economic. It's, as always, political. It's a reflection of a Europe that legislates for the continent but forgets the square kilometer, the coastal town that thrives on tourists who need a ride to the airport with Canarian punctuality and a friendly face. Maspalomas will keep turning, like the wheels of its taxis, as long as someone keeps asking: "Can you take me to the Lighthouse, please?" Because sometimes, the best regulation is the one that listens before applying.