Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

760 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE acts in Estonian legal system, namely Law of Obligations Act (hereinafter LOA) 4 and Tourism Act (hereinafter TA) 5 . With the new Directive, the same legislative style has been kept. The Estonian private law system, which has been in continuous development during the last twenty years starting from 1991 after declaring independency for the second time 6 , is based on five legal acts which together form the non-codified pandect civil code 7 . All transactions, including consumer contracts, are regulated by the LOA, whereas the most general norms for transactions are provided in the General Part of the Civil Code Act 8 (hereinafter GPCCA). Rules concerning travel package contracts are provided for in LOA. TA provides rules concerning general requirements for offering and providing tourist services, requirements for tourist information centres, the liability for violation of the law and the procedure for the exercise of supervision over travel services. Also, some concepts related to travel package contracts are defined in TA such as the concepts of travel service, travel business, package, linked travel arrangements, contact point and rules concerning the obligation to provide security for the performance of travel services. In the course of the transposition of the Directive, §§ 1-3, 5-8, 15-154, 17- 26-31 and 36 of the TA and Chapter 44 of the LOA were amended 9 . This article examines the course of the legislative process related to the transposition of the Directive (2), distinctive features of the implementation (3), assessment of the correctness of the implementations (4) and offers some concluding remarks (5). Section 3 discusses the scope of application (3.1.), subjects of the travel package contract (3.2.), pre-contractual and contractual information obligations (3.3.), content of the travel package contract (3.4.), 4 Law of Obligations Act (võlaõigusseadus), passed 26.09.2000, in force 1.07.2002. Available in English at: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/507032019001/consolide/current (2.08.2019). 5 Tourism Act (turismiseadus), passed 15.11.2000, in force 1.03.2001. Available in English at: https://www. riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/511012019002/consolide (2.08.2019). 6 See more in P. Varul. Legal Policy Decisions and Choices in the Creation of New Private Law in Estonia. Juridica International 5, 2000, pp. 104-118; P. Varul. The creation of new Estonian private law. European Review of Private Law 1, 2008, 95-109; I. Kull. European and Estonian Law of Obligations – Transpositions of Law and Mutual Influence? Juridica International 9, 2004, pp. 32-44. 7 These five legal acts are: General Part of the Civil Code Act (2002) Law of Property Act (1993), Law of Obligations Act (2002), Family Law Act (2009) and Succession Law Act (2008). 8 General Part of Civil Code Act (tsiviilseadustiku üldosa seadus), passed 27.03.2002, in force 1.07.2002. Available in English at: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/502012019003/consolide (2.08.2019). 9 Minor changes were made also in the Consumer Protection Act which consists of public law rules. See Consumer ProtectionAct (tarbijakaitseseadus), passed 9.12.2015, in force 1.03.2016. Available in English at: https://www.riigiteataja . ee/en/eli/520032019016/consolide (2.08.2019). About national transposition measures see European Commission. National transposition measures for the Package Travel Directive. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/ consumers/travel-and-timeshare-law/national-transposition-measures-package-travel-directive_en (2.08.2019).