Their fury is hardly surprising: Mantovani’s transparency has cost his colleagues tens of thousands of euros in lost earnings. The discrepancy between his earnings and theirs is too vast to be credible, and so they’ve had to increase the amount they declare to the tax authorities. “I’m undermining that block of €4,000 to €5,000 placed in cash on the family table every month,” he says.
Yet the real money isn’t being made from tax evasion, but from selling coveted taxi licences at inflated prices. Recently, undercover reporters from Le Iene, a satirical TV programme, filmed a Bologna driver offering to sell his licence for €285,000. Mantovani tells me that he paid €250,000 to acquire his licence eight years ago (from a cabbie who wanted a change of career). Now, though, he calculates its value has probably fallen to around €200,000, reflecting the recent 10% increase in the size of Bologna’s taxi fleet.
A taxi licence is a lucrative investment, guaranteeing years of tax-free earnings. “The business plan is straightforward,” says Gabriele Grea, a Professor of Economics at Milan’s Bocconi University. “An upfront investment in a licence must pay back in a reasonable number of years of activity in a regulated market, where competition is limited by law. The licence keeps its value in order to guarantee a serene retirement.” That business plan, however, relies on vetoing any new licences. If, as AGCM has urged them to, city councils do increase the number of taxi licences by 20%, the value of the asset will fall. In which case, taxi drivers would find their cushy retirement plans under threat.
As a result, every time a city council attempts to issue more licences, the city risks being grid-locked by thousands of taxis either on strike or a go-slow, which involves driving at 5-mph through the city en bloc. Mantovani calls the taxi-drivers’ lobby “a great economic and military power. We’re an economic power because we bought a part of the public service. We’re a military power because we’re a small army. We can block the roads. Everyone’s scared of taxi-drivers, we’re the last of the untouchables.”
Perhaps this explains why politicians are reluctant to act. “Taxi drivers are greatly feared by the political class,” says Rienzi. “They have an absolute supremacy compared to other workers. With their protests they’re able to hold in check millions of citizens.” While there are only around 35,000 taxi drivers in the country, their relatives — who also benefit financially from protected privileges — swell to around 150,000 the number of people who will fight any political party that attempts to change the status quo.
Taxi drivers also have a trapped audience upon which they unleash their opinions and prejudices. I’ve frequently been monologued to by taxi-drivers who use their cabs as soapboxes, ranting against a particular mayor. It’s easy to imagine that local politicians live in fear of this loquacious lobby.
As a result, legislation regarding taxi drivers is invariably in their favour. Despite hard lobbying, Uber has been unable to enter the Italian market in any meaningful way. Uber drivers are obliged to have a “luxury car”, making them more costly than the white cabs. And while in the past, taxi drivers shared between themselves 80% of all monies from the issuing of new taxi licences, new legislation from last summer, the “Decreto Asset”, decreed that that proportion will now rise to 100%. It’s been estimated that, if licences were increased by 20%, each extant licensee would receive €35,000.
I’ve found it almost impossible to find anyone willing to defend the taxi drivers. Of all the various taxi unions, only Federtaxi replies to my enquiries. “If you say to me,” says Claudio Gianandrea, a Federtaxi representative, “that there’s a situation of distress, I would agree with you. But I’ve been in service for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like last year.” He believes that the problem lies not in the lack of taxi licences, but in a post-Covid tourist invasion combined with widespread roadworks and municipal upgrades across Rome as it prepares for the 2025 jubilee. He points out that, despite runaway inflation, taxi fares haven’t risen for 12 years.
In many ways, though, this isn’t a niche story about transport blockages, but about Italy’s flat-lining economy. One of the major factors behind Italy’s economic woes is its tendency to protect professional cartels. Although such privileges have been chipped away in recent years, there are still many professions — including notaries, chemists, and notoriously beach-front bagni — that keep prices eye-wateringly high, standards low, and competition at bay. One city councillor I spoke to said that in his southern town, the local chemist was “richer, more respected and more powerful” than the mayor.
The EU has repeatedly attempted to force competition on this sclerotic economy, but the country artfully ignores all such edicts. In some ways, its ability to resist market forces is almost admirable. If Italy often feels enchantingly medieval — with luthiers, leather-workers and book-binders toiling away in city cellars — it’s partly because it has been able to shelter artisans and their medieval guilds from the gale-forces of globalisation. But if you come here for such other-worldly charm, don’t be surprised when you can’t find a taxi to take you to your hotel.
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