Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1132 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE information regarding the performed activity. By the Order of the Minister of Tourism no. 1183/2018 a procedure has been developed for this reporting obligation, which gives the ministry the opportunity to check on a monthly basis whether the guarantee instrument presented by each organizing agency is or is not effectively protection for passengers. In order to establish the value of the guarantee instrument, the Romanian legislature provided a procedure that again exceeds the requirements of European legislation and thus creates competitive disadvantages for the organisers of Romanian nationality. Each organizing agency must send to the Ministry of Tourism an activity report 11 , containing the following information: a. The total value of contracted travel packages b. The total amount paid in advance for the contracted and non-delivered travel packages c. Amounts paid to suppliers (in respect of ongoing travel packages) of the total amount received d. The balance [difference between the values of letter b) and c) above]. The value guaranteed by the guarantee instrument or instruments submitted to the Ministry of Tourism must always be higher than the balance of this monthly report 12 . This mechanism is, in our opinion, which we are now arguing, dissonant of the intention of the European legislator, which, in the preamble 13 of Directive (EU) 2015/2302, explained, on the one hand, that “the protection should be sufficient to cover all foreseeable payments made by or on behalf of travellers in respect of packages in peak season, taking into account the period between receiving such payments and the completion of the trip or holiday, as well as, where applicable, the foreseeable cost for repatriations” and, on the other hand, that “That will generally mean that the security has to cover a sufficiently high percentage of the organiser’s turnover in respect of packages, and may depend on factors such as the type of packages sold, including the mode of transport, the travel destination, and any legal restrictions 11 Organisers will submit the declaration monthly, by the 30th of the following month. 12 The Directorate of Control within the Ministry of Tourism can check the veracity of the information provided by the organisers. 13 See paragraph 40 of the preamble of the Directive (EU) 2015/2302.