Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

LITHUANIA | DANGUOLĖ BUBLIENĖ AND IEVA NAVICKAITĖ-SAKALAUSKIENĖ 1001 that the pre-contractual information has to be provided in the State language. The authors note that it contains a surplus requirement, which cannot be found in the text of the Directive. However, at the same time, the Directive establishes the requirement of “comprehensible” information. Therefore, it might be interpreted that the national law requirement to provide information in the State language meets the requirement of “comprehensible” information. Thirdly, and according to the requirement set out in Article 6 (1) of the Travel Directive, “Member States shall ensure that the information provided to the traveller pursuant to points (a), (c), (d), (e), and (g) of the first subparagraph of Article 5 (1) shall form an integral part of the package travel contract and shall not be altered unless the contracting parties expressly agree otherwise” is verbatim transposed to Article 6.749 (3) of the Civil Code, stating the rules on conclusion and content of the package travel contract. The authors note that this norm can cause problems, when applying it in practice, having in mind that the meaning of the condition “unless the parties expressly agree” is not clear. “Expressly” is not necessarily individually, which means that the provisions on the information’s alteration can be among the contract clauses that are not individually negotiated. In this context, the question can be raised whether this condition is solely related to the external presentation of the terms or also with the understanding of the consumer. As examples of cases in which the failure to provide the traveller with pre- -contractual information has been stated, there were two claims, both concerning compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage caused by the organiser’s failure to provide services to a tourist whose passport validity term did not meet the requirements set by the country of destination 44 . The Court emphasised that the information related to the period of validity of the identity document, if provided, could, in the present cases, have been of real importance to the claimants, when deciding to conclude the travel package contract or not. Finally, the Court stated that the organiser did not fulfil his obligation to provide information accurately, i.e. by failing to ensure that the claimant had a clear understanding of the content of the requirement to hold a valid personal document for a period, specified by the country of destination. It should be noted that, according to the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, the completeness of the information must be assessed, individually, 44 The ruling of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, 25 May 2015, case No. 3K-3-381-421/2015; 10 December 2013, case No. 3K-3-659/2013.