A bill has been submitted to parliament in the South restricting taxi drivers from the North offering their services in the South. It’s designed to cut out competition from Northern drivers who take customers from Southern airports, most often Larnaca, to destinations in the North - or from the North to Larnaca airport. The transport minister’s phrasing is slightly pompous, and no doubt was in the original Greek as well: “The job of a taxi driver is a clearly defined profession. They have specific licences, and there are limits on who has the right to be a taxi driver in the Republic of Cyprus.”
Fine - there are standards. But that’s not really what this is about. And let’s not get carried away. Not just anyone can do it; you have to be Greek? Hard on the taxi drivers of the North unless there is retaliation, which might happen. Tour bus operators in the South would be quite distressed to find themselves unable to go to popular destinations like Famagusta or Salamis. But hard too on would be passengers in the North. Anyone from either side can find an airport or a major hotel. But coming from the South and not speaking Turkish when looking for an address in a village, possibly at night, is much trickier. We had one driver whom we had prudently hired from the North to pick us up in Larnaca and take us to Famagusta use his own mobile and naturally fluent Turkish to sort things out when the directions we had been given proved inaccurate. A Greek speaking driver on unfamiliar territory would never have found it.
And what about other international borders? Seems not necessarily to create great difficulty. No problem getting a taxi between Windsor and Detroit. Ask the casino players.
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