The High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands (TSJB) has annulled the resolution of the Government that denied in February 2023 some 600 VTC authorizations requested by Moove Cars Baleares, Uber’s provider in Mallorca, and has ordered to revert the procedure so that the Administration reassesses them “without applying the quantitative limitation 12’6 provided for in Article 3 of Decree 43/2014”.
The Court understands that the refusal -based exclusively on the fact that the ratio of 12.6 cab licenses for each VTC in Mallorca was exceeded- was issued without justifying any “overriding reason of general interest”, as required by European doctrine.
The resolution was supported by a report that stated that “the total number of VT (cab) in Mallorca is 1,949 and the total number of VTC is 350, which means a VT/VTC ratio of 5.56 and therefore the established ratio is not respected“. For the Govern this was enough to reject all applications. For the TSJB, it was not.
The Brussels coup behind the ruling
The Balearic court follows in the wake of the famous ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU on June 8, 2023, which declared that the 1/30 limitation applied in Barcelona infringed the freedom of establishment when non-economic reasons were not accredited. The TSJ recalls that the CJEU established that “it is contrary to a regulation […] which establishes a limitation on the number of licenses […] when it has not been established either that this measure is appropriate […] or that the said measure does not go beyond what is necessary”.
And he adds that, in the Balearic Islands, the Government also applied an automatism: “The absence of a circumstantial assessment of the environmental impact, of traffic, of good management that these requests imply […] implies a decision that conforms to strictly economic criteria with omission of compelling reasons of general interest”.
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What about the Balearic moratorium?
The ruling goes into a crucial point: Law 1/2024, which established a moratorium suspending new cab and VTC licenses until the Govern approves a decree with objective criteria based on CO₂, traffic and public space management.
But the court itself clarifies that this moratorium does not affect these applications, because they were filed before its entry into force. In other words,these 600 applications must be evaluated immediately, without waiting for the new regulation and without applying the limiting ratio.
It should be noted that the Chamber does not grant the licenses, it only orders reexamination. What is almost a fact is that the VTC market in the Balearic Islands will grow.
Although the case affects Mallorca, it may set a precedent in the rest of the archipelago. Today Ibiza has one of the most restrictive ratios (6.74:1, established in Decree 43/2014), based on “insularity and seasonality”.
But the TSJ makes it clear that invoking these concepts in a generic way is not enough: “It matters little that the Decree alludes to reasons of seasonality and insularity […] the contested resolution is devoid of an analysis that justifies other compelling reasons of general interest,” the ruling states.
A sentence in the middle of a debate
The sentence comes while the Govern is processing the new regional regulation, which will delegate to councils and town halls the setting of license ceilings by means of a technical formula that is difficult to read, as published in La Voz de Ibiza.
Precisely, one of the points that generated more expectations in the draft regulation was the relationship between cab and VTC. The regulation avoids giving a specific ratio, and urges the weighting of different criteria, including the human pressure index, as well as others such as the environment and the characteristics of each city.
