Croatian Taxi Drivers To Fight Against Uber With ‘All Our Might’

Taxi drivers in Croatia’s capital have been quick to react after it was revealed this week that taxi-hailing company Uber plan to enter the Zagreb market…

Uber, the mobile-app-based transportation network which connects passengers to crowd-sourced private drivers, are set to reveal their intentions at the OMGcommerce regional conference in Zagreb in May, but head of the Radio Taxi Zagreb Association has warned they can expect strong resistance.

“I can not believe that it will be allowed. It reminds me of anarchy or a banana republic. To be a legal taxi driver here you need a mountain of paper work. You must finish traffic school, pass exams and then an expert test. There are also requirements about the type of car you can use. You need between 20,000 -30,000 euros to be able to operate as a taxi. After all that they will come with some application and take our jobs. We will fight with all our might that it does not come to that,” said President of Radio Taxi Zagreb Association Jozo Kovačević to Tportal.

Uber, which is currently available in over 50 countries and more than 200 cities worldwide, has recently expanded into Bucharest, Vienna and Warsaw, and Croatia is their next target with Uber’s ‘International Launcher’ Rob Khazzam already visiting Zagreb. A number of governments and taxi companies in Europe have put up a fight against Uber, including in the UK, France, Holland, Germany and Italy. Some legal experts say that Uber operating in Croatia would be against the law.