May taxi fare hike put under review
A planned hike in taxi charges in May, when fares are due to rise to 0.72 euros per kilometer from the current 60 cents, is to be reviewed, Infrastructure, Transport and Networks Minister Dimitris Reppas said yesterday, as cabbies prepared to increase their fares by 1 euro for the holiday period, starting tomorrow. The planned increase in May was to be the last in a series of three incremental hikes that taxi driver unions agreed to last April with Reppas’s conservative predecessor Evripidis Stylianidis. Reppas’s move was seen as a belated response to a question submitted in Parliament in October by Dimitris Papadimoulos, a deputy affiliated with the Coalition of the Radical Left. Papadimoulis had sought a freeze on the second taxi fare increase that came into effect on November 1. Reacting to rumors of a possible freeze on scheduled fare hikes last month, taxi unions had threatened to strike.
