Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ROMANIA | ILIE DUMITRU 1127 The Romanian State, through the national law transposing the Package Travel Directive, did not use the permission to regulate the liability of the retailer for the provision of travel services. This situation has, however, generated (at least, in Romania) heated debates between tourism professionals, especially between organisers and traders. The dispute arises from the fact that the retailer is the one who interacts with the tourist, concludes the contract with him and receives money from him, as the price of the package of travel services. However, the organisers rightly claim that their contractual liability for the provision of travel services to tourists cannot be hired until they receive from the trader the sums of money paid by tourists for the price of the package. Until that time, the responsibility to tourists for the execution of the tourist services can only belong to the trader with which they concluded the contract and to which they paid the price. Article 2 (3) of Directive (EU) 2015/2302 states explicitly that “This Directive does not affect national general contract law such as the rules on the validity, formation or effect of a contract, insofar as general contract law aspects are not regulated in this Directive.”. Anyway, Directive (EU) 2015/2302 does not regulate a particular type of contract that would be concluded between the organiser and the retailer. This contractual relationship therefore remains subject to the rules governing contracts in each Member State. However, in the case of Romania at least, these national regulations in the matter of contracts law allow the responsibility for the provision of tourist services to differ according to the type of contract concluded between the organiser and the retailer. The general Romanian Law on Contracts (Romanian Civil Code) regulates different types of contracts, which can be used in the contract chain “organiser – retailer – traveller”, and according to the nature of the chosen and signed contract, the liability towards the tourist for the execution of the tourist services may belong either to the organiser and (most of the time) to the retailer. If a sales contract of the travel package is concluded between the organiser and the retailer (which, in international trade, is the most used contract between a manufacturer and a retailer), and between the retailer and the traveller a second sale contract is concluded, it is obvious that the tourist cannot hold responsible none other than the one with whom he contracted, i.e., the retailer. In such case, however, we should accept that we are no longer under the Article 13 (1) of the Directive (EU) 2015/2302, which governs the liability of the organiser, but