Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1018 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE The Minister further consulted the Council of State which reviewed the drafts and raised few remarks on legal issues concerning the adoption of the proposed acts 5 . Nevertheless, these drafts were adopted without substantial amendments following the observations raised by the Commerce Chamber or the Council of State. Hence, the ‘Law of 25 April 2018 amending the consumer code in relation to package travel and linked travel arrangements, and amending the amended law of 2 September 2011 governing access to occupations in craft trades, business and industry, and to certain liberal professions’, as well as a Grand-Ducal Regulation of the same day, were enacted. A LITERAL TRANSPOSITION OF THE DIRECTIVE An entire chapter of the Consumer Code was thus amended by Law of 25 April 2018 to transpose the European Directive 6 . The new provisions of the Consumer Code first define its scope concentrated only on travel packages and on the new concept of linked travel arrangements 7 . They transpose literally the definitions provided by the Directive 8 , and, in this respect, it should be observed that the opinion of the Commerce Chamber ended up not being followed. In particular, the Commerce Chamber suggested to clarify the interpretation of these definitions, inter alia by reference to the Directive’s preamble. This was the case, for example, for the notion of travel services that “do not account for a significant proportion of the value of the combination”. The preamble 9 expressly referred to the percentage of 25% of the total value of the combination. This was not expressly introduced in the Consumer Code of Luxembourg, but would in fact certainly serve as formal guidance, in case of need for an interpretation. The Directive provided improved lists of information to be communicated by the organiser and the retailer to the travellers, before the conclusion of a package contract and in the contract upon its conclusion. The Consumer Code reproduces 5 Opinion of the Council of State of 7 November 2017. 6 Chapter 5, Title 2, Book 2 of the Consumer Code. 7 Article L.225-1 of the Consumer Code. 8 Article L.225-2 of the Consumer Code. 9 Directive, at §18.