San Francisco-based ride-hailing service Uber announced on Thursday that it was suspending its service in Greece following the approval of legislation which imposes stricter regulations.
Opposition against Uber came from traditional taxi cabs and their powerful unions, that swayed the government to act on the new restrictions.
Uber said in a statement on its local blog for the Greek market that effective April 10th it would suspend its UberX service, which allows private vehicles to transport people to their chosen destinations via the Uber telephone app.
“New local regulations were voted on recently with provisions that impact ride-sharing services,” Uber said in a blog post. “We have to assess if and how we can operate within this new framework and so will be suspending uberX in Athens from next Tuesday until we can find an appropriate solution.”
New regulations force companies like Uber to require each trip to start and end in the fleet partner’s designated headquarters or parking area, effectively killing Uber’s entire business model.
The moves by the government followed angry demonstrations by traditional yellow cabbies who took to the streets of Athens to protest the ride-hailing services for taking away their business– even attacking a vehicle they believed to be an Uber driver.
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