Ncc decrees, black cars in the square again: 'Meloni meets us'
According to the operators of chauffeur-driven hire cars, discriminatory rules are on the way, which will sink the sector by benefiting only taxi drivers, to the detriment of the traditional users of their services, such as companies and tour operators.
by Flavia Landolfi and Vittorio Nuti
6' min read
Key points
6' min read
Dozens of 'black cars' from all over Italy marched from Eur to the centre of the capital - with some negative effects on traffic in the capital - and a crowded static demonstration in Piazza della Repubblica in Rome: this, in short, was the second day of protest - after the one at the end of February - promoted by Ncc companies and operators against the so-called "Salvini decrees", the package of measures that should fully implement (with a five-year delay) the rules regulating the car rental service with driver, but are considered penalising and vexatious by most companies and workers in the sector.
The Nccs, explains Francesco Artusa, president of Sistema Trasporti, 'urge the intervention of Palazzo Chigi as we consider Minister Salvini to be hopelessly compromised in an election campaign in favour of taxi drivers. We need third parties and to be able to present our reform proposals. We will no longer accept the rules imposed on us by the taxi drivers,' he says. 'It is shameful that there can still be two competing categories in the same law in which for one, the Nccs, there is a demand for the dossier of customer operators, an hour's stoppage between one service and another, a ban on working for intermediaries such as tour operators and agencies, and administrative arrest for any infringement, even alleged. The other instead, the taxi, is pampered and exempt from any obligation, including tax obligations, and with much lighter penalties, when rarely imposed, for far more serious violations'.
The event, called by Sistema Trasporti, Anitrav, Associazione Ncc Italia, AsiNcc, Comitato Air was also joined by the MuoverSì federation, whose president Andrea Romano, in a note, recalls that "Salvini is preparing to place further and incomprehensible restrictions on the activities of Ncc companies and operators using the surreptitious instrument of implementing decrees and basing himself on legislation that is more than thirty years old and has been reworked several times by the Constitutional Court (most recently a few days ago). All this to protect and safeguard the few and untouchable taxi drivers'.
Majority and Opposition voices
.Signs of support for the line of the Nccs in the procession in Rome came from politics, with adhesions from both opposition and majority representatives. For senator Raffaella Paita, national coordinator of Italia Viva, the minister Salvini 'confirms his inability to reform the sector properly, there is a clear strategy to pander to all the demands of the taxis and instead go against the Nccs'. Also siding with the Nccs is +Europa, which attacks the government's "vexatious, corporative and anti-competitive policies that are harmful to citizens, businesses and tourists". "The Meloni government should stop and listen to all the voices of non-scheduled public transport," asks Senator Antonio Misiani, in charge of Infrastructure at the PD national secretariat, according to whom "the demonstration of the operators of chauffeur-driven hire cannot go unheard. And also Giorgio Mulè, vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies and Forza Italia deputy, calls for the Ncc category to be listened to, because the chauffeur-driven hire service is "an integral part of a strategic sector for mobility, and for this reason Forza Italia "will continue to work with determination so that a point of balance is reached that contemplates the reasons of all those involved" in the debate on the 'Salvini decrees'.
Taxi unions: 'On the streets those who don't want rules'
The Ncc mobilisation has provoked a strong stance by several taxi drivers' unions (Fit Cisl taxi, Ugl taxi, Federtaxi Cisal, Satam, Tam, Claai, Unione Artigiani, Unione Tassisti d'Italia, Uritaxi, Fast Confal taxi, Associazione Tutela Legale Taxi and Ati taxi), united in defining the 'black car' rally as "an instrumental protest fuelled by the interests of the multinational Uber, which has always been opposed to any form of regulation". "Only a few hundred operators took to the streets in an attempt to politicise the conclusion of the reform process of the sector envisaged by law 12/2019, which has been awaited for more than five years, just because they are refractory to any kind of control". Of the same tenor is also the opinion of Confnoleggio, another trade union but of the Ncc front, which judges Article 85 of the Highway Code - also in the crosshairs of rental car operators who consider it punitive for the category - as 'the only means of opposing and protecting our profession from the illegitimate use of Ncc titles, imposing sanctions on those who do not respect the rules'.
