Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1000 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE The question of the organiser’s duty to provide the traveller with pre- -contractual information in writing was also raised in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, by applying preceding provisions 43 . In this context, it is important to note that the provisions transposing the rules of the old Travel Directive did not leave any room for manoeuvre, imperatively stating that the information for the traveller has to be provided in writing. As the question of the providing the tourists with the information in a proper way was raised, the travel agency (organiser) claimed that, according to the requirements of the Directive 90/314/EEC, the written form was not necessary, because the information should be provided in writing or any other appropriate form. The organiser asked the national court to refer to the European Court of Justice with a request for a preliminary ruling, in order to find out whether the organisers’ rights were not restricted by means of the national regulation. The authors note that as this issue was examined in the context of the old Travel Directive, the way of the reasoning which was chosen by the national court was rather predictable. The court noted that, having in mind the minimum harmonisation character of Directive 90/314/ EEC, the higher level of consumer protection was not prohibited, therefore the duty to provide the pre-contractual information in writing is compatible with the provisions of the directive, and there is no need to address the European Court of Justice with this issue. It is important to stress that this kind of reasoning will no longer be possible, in the context of the new Travel Directive, having in mind its full harmonisation character. If similar questions repeatedly arise, in the context of the new regulation, it is obvious that the national court no longer has a free hand to apply higher consumer protection standards, and so the need to apply to the European Court of Justice would probably be inevitable. Moreover, having set the requirement to provide the information in writing and on paper, the national norms do not provide that, in the case of written pre- -contractual information, it shall be legible. This means that, on the one side, the national norm tries to set the higher consumer protection standard (going above the one required by the Travel Directive), making it mandatory to provide all the pre-contractual information in writing, while on the other side, it does not prevent the situations, in which such information is provided in a small print or it is not easily noticed. As it was mentioned above, the additional requirements on pre-contractual information are also set in Article 5 of Law on Tourism. In Article 5 (1) it is said 43 The ruling of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, 25 May 2015, case No. 3K-3-381-421/2015.