Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1062 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE DCC of Articles 7:500 to 7:513(d) DCC. This should mean that the ACM determines, or causes another party to determine on its behalf, that the guarantee funds listed on the website are sufficiently stress-resistant and can survive a bankruptcy of one or more affiliated organisers. However, the ACM does not do this. The ACM only states all currently known guarantee funds on its website without a substantive assessment of the guarantee provided by these funds. As we understand, De Nederlandsche Bank does not conduct such an assessment either. It must be concluded that the Netherlands has failed to ensure that organisers established in its territory have provided security for the repayment of the travel fees in case of insolvency. After all, the Dutch legislator has not yet ensured that the organisers have provided security by requiring the organiser to take measures set out in Article 7:513(a) DCC and based on the fact that Article 2.3 of the DCPEA appointed the ACM as the central point of contact within the meaning of the Directive. The ACM can act pursuant to the DCPEA if it has determined that an organiser of packages or a trader of a linked travel arrangement has not provided a guarantee in case of financial incapacity, but it is apparently unwilling or unable to study whether a guarantee fund is materially (and financially) able to fulfil an invoked guarantee. Is the ACM (or De Nederlandsche Bank) not required to study whether these guarantee funds offer coverage as required by the Act and Directive? The travel organiser is responsible for providing measures that ensure that the traveller does not suffer any damage in case of the bankruptcy of the organiser. Is the organiser permitted to charge a separate contribution for this assurance to the traveller, and is the organiser also allowed to demand a greater contribution for travel fees that exceed a certain amount? This is currently the case for one of the guarantee funds listed by the ACM: the fund provided by GGTO 43 . The fact that the traveller must assess whether there is a guarantee, and no substantive assessment of the guarantee is performed by the ACM and/or De Nederlandsche Bank means that the Directive has apparently not been implemented properly on this aspect. From the above mentioned recent ruling of the EU CoJ (July 2019) follows that a EU member state has to compensate a traveller in case the national legislation – regarding guarantees in case of insolvency – does not ensure the refund of all payments made by or on behalf of 43 Article 3 of the membership rates GGTO publication 18-01-2018, version 1-7, and on the website of the GGTO on January 28 th .