Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1190 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE In this context, the Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council on package travel and related travel services 2 , still had to be transposed. This has been the last incorporation to the Spanish Consumers Guarantees Act and the subject of the 2017 report by the CNMC, which will be commented in this contribution. It is noteworthy that the successive transpositions have been carried out in the consumers protection Acts. That is to say, there is no proper (and unified) legislation on package travel since 2007, whereas in the past there was a separate law regarding it. It is true that other countries such as Austria or Estonia 3 have also opted for this solution, but have done so as a complementary way, since they also have specific regulations on package travel. However, in Spain this decision is due to its decentralized political structure. Under Article 148.1.18 of the Spanish Constitution, each Autonomous Community has competence in tourismmatters. It is therefore each Autonomous Community that has been regulating in the field of travel agencies and combined travel in a more profound way. However, since 2007, as has been said, there was a provision in this regard in the Consumers Act, and that is how it has remained for the transposition of the New Directive. The content of the consumer protection regulations is a basic content, the minimum limit that other regions must comply with when legislating. Within this framework, each Autonomous Community proceeds to legislate the matter. Thus, there are 17 different regulations in this regard, which, depending on the region and the political option, contemplate different solutions. Most of them regulate the package travel in decrees related to travel agencies (Aragon or Andalusia, to name a few). III. BACKGROUND ON PACKAGE TRAVEL IN SPAIN Coming back to the more recent background, with the approval of the EUDirective 2015/2032, it became necessary, once more, to adapt the Spanish regulations, with the corresponding modification of Book IV of the Spanish Consumers Guarantees Act, where the national (and basic) regulation on package travel is located. 2 https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/travel-and-timeshare-law/package-travel-directive_en. 3 The rest of other Member States transpositions can be seen here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/travel-and-timeshare-law/national-transposition- -measures-package-travel-directive_en.