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Rideshare firms Uber and Cabify are leaving Barcelona this Friday. The two largest apps in the sector in the Catalan capital made the announcements this Thursday through separate statements. "For the moment, we've lost. There's nothing irreversible, but whilst this decree is in place we cannot operate", said Uber's spokesperson for Spain, Yuri Fernández.

After a week-long strike by taxi drivers in Barcelona, the Catalan government last week agreed to introduce new regulations on rideshare firms, known in Catalan as VTC after the type of license such drivers must hold. The cabinet passed the new measures on Tuesday. The most controversial is the requirement that journeys with such companies must be booked at least 15 minutes in advance, a time which local authorities could increase up to an hour.

"The new decree which forces us to wait 15 minutes is unique in Europe. It makes it impossible for us to continue operating because the service isn't viable", explained Fernández, adding that any waiting time is contrary to the idea of rideshare firms.

For Uber's spokesperson, there's no need to "eliminate a sector" to make another possible. "There are more solutions. A negotiation process with the two sides should be started", he said, noting that most European countries "set regulations for drivers but don't make their work impossible".

Translation: "In the face of the restrictions on VTC [companies] approved by the government of Catalonia, we find ourselves forced to suspend UberX service in Barcelona from tomorrow. Many thanks to the thousands of users and drivers who have trusted in us".

This morning, Uber sent the tweet translated above, including a link to a statement "see you soon, Barcelona". "At Uber, we want regulations to exist. Our objective is to become a long-term ally of the more than 600 cities we operate in. And Barcelona isn't an exception," they wrote.

This time, however, things haven't gone Uber's way. "To contribute to the life of a city, we need fair regulations. In the case of Catalonia, regulations which take into account the thousands of VTC drivers and users, who today are seeing their way of life and their freedom to choose how they move about their city disappear. The requirement to wait 15 minutes to travel in a VTC doesn't exist anywhere else in Europe and is totally incompatible with the immediacy of on-demand services, like UberX," the statement continues.

For their part, Cabify expressed regret in a statement that territory and sustainability minister Damià Calvet should have "yielded to the pressure and demands of the taxi sector, seriously harming the public interest".

They say the regulation has the sole objective of expelling VTC firms from Catalonia through "artificial and highly restrictive" measures which "destroy" a market which had created more than 3000 jobs.

The numbers

Cabify has published statistics to support its argument that the new regulations put its viability in question. According to their report, 99.5% of Cabify journeys start after less than 15 minutes' wait, with only 10% booked more than eight minutes in advance.

Indeed, only 3% of requested journeys are currently advanced bookings, the only way that exists at the moment for Cabify to meet the requirement for a minimum of 15 minutes' wait.