¡Hola Madrid!

Today, after more than a year away, Uber has returned to Spain. With the launch of uberX in Madrid, passengers looking for a ride around town can now connect with professionally licensed for-hire drivers. Until now, Europe’s third-largest city—home to 6.5 million people—was one of the few major cities where you couldn’t get a ride with Uber.

There is growing recognition in Europe and around the world that services like Uber can improve life in cities, while bringing new economic opportunities to people who need them. Just a few years ago only one place (California) had a regulatory framework for ridesharing services. Today more than 70 jurisdictions in the United States do and many other places around the globe are following suit, including in Australia, India and Mexico. In Lithuania, the government is developing new regulations, and legislators in neighboring Estonia are already considering a draft reform bill.

Especially in places like Madrid, in a country where 50 percent of young people are out of work and the city is struggling with record levels of pollution and congestion, services like Uber have enormous potential to help on both fronts. But the current rules — like an artificial cap on the number of professional driving licenses —prevent both people who want to be drivers from doing so and congestion-cutting options like uberPOOL, which require a certain scale, from being viable.

That’s among the reasons why Spain’s national competition authority (CNMC) has repeatedly found that such restrictions are unjustified. And the CNMC is not alone: competition authorities from a dozen countries, including many in Europe, have expressed support for opening up transport markets with the introduction of services like Uber.

We understand that technology can be disruptive, especially when changes are happening as quickly as they are today. At the same time, the status quo is clearly not serving the interests of passengers, drivers or their cities in Spain or in many other places around the world. That’s why we have a duty to work in partnership with the countries where we operate. Together we can ensure that Uber and the on-demand economy increase transportation choices, deliver new opportunities for drivers, and improve the lives of people in cities everywhere.