Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1158 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE contracts concluded in B2B and C2C relations, since consumer protection is regulated in a separate Consumer Protection Act 6 , which was originally adopted in 1998, much under the influence of the then nascent European consumer protection law. This feature of Slovenian private law is similar to the position in France. Consumer Protection Act as a lex specialis complements the provisions of the Obligations Code, inter alia , with the rules on package travel in B2C relations 7 . The adoption of the New PackageTravel Directive (hereinafter referred to as “the Directive”) amending the Consumer Protection Act has increased the level of protection for travellers and brought more transparency for both travellers and traders by broadening the concept of package, enacting several pre- -contractual information requirements, introducing a new concept of linked travel arrangements and increasing the level of insolvency protection. The paper aims to give an overall assessment of the correctness of Directive’s transposition into Slovenian law and an overview of its implementation process. It should be noted, however, that although the new rules started to apply in Slovenia on 1 July 2018, publicly available case law on this matter is still scarce. Due to the lack of academic literature concerning the newly implemented rules, the analysis focuses predominantly on the relevant provisions of the Slovenian legislation and includes our view how it is likely to be interpreted in practice. 2. THE COURSE OF THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS RELATED TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF DIRECTIVE 2015/2302 IN SLOVENIA After the adoption of the New Package Travel Directive in November 2015 and its entry into force in December 2015, Member States were required to transpose the new rules into their national law by the 1 January 2018 and apply them from 1 July 2018. The Directive was implemented into Slovenian law by the Act Amending the Consumer Protection Act 8 , the draft of which was only discussed in 6 “Zakon o varstvu potrošnikov (ZVPot)”, Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, Nr. 98/04, 114/06, 126/07, 86/09, 78/11, 38/14, 19/15, 55/17, 31/18. 7 See: J. Markič in: M. Juhart, N. Plavšak: Obligacijski zakonik s komentarjem, Vol. 4, GV Založba, Ljubljana, 2004, pp. 713, 714; A. Inkret, Varstvo potrošnikov in turizem, Pravna praksa, Nr. 25, 2001, pp. I-IV. 8 “Zakon o spremembah in dopolnitvah Zakona o varstvu potrošnikov (ZVPot-H)”, Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, Nr. 31/18. In the field of package travel the new Consumer Protection Act is adequately complemented by the rules of Family Code (“Družinski zakonik (DZ)”, Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, Nr. 15/17, 21/18 and 22/19) and the Promotion of Tourism Development Act (“Zakon o spodbujanju razvoja turizma (ZSRT-1)”, Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, Nr. 13/18).