Greek taxi owners yesterday threatened to escalate a protest against the government that has disrupted access to harbours and airports at the height of the busy summer tourism season.

“We will react any way we can, and unless the Prime Minister himself intervenes there might even be casualties,” George Ploumidis, a senior taxi unionist on the island of Crete, told Flash Radio.

The country’s ruling Socialists decided to deregulate the taxi sector earlier this month as part of efforts to liberalise the nation’s struggling economy, a key demand of Greece’s foreign creditors.

Taxi owners resist the move, arguing that full liberalisation will sink the value of their operating licenses, which until now were worth hundreds of thousands of euros. They also accuse the government of abandoning a plan to cap the number of available taxi licences when a new transport minister took over in June.

Hundreds of taxi unionists have mobilised on the mainland and on Greek islands which are popular travel destinations for hundreds of thousands of tourists.