Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1196 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE VI. CONCLUSIONS The CNMC recommendations concerning the Package Travel Directive transposition to the Spanish legal system, via the Consumer Protection Act, focus on three major observations. The first one refers to the requirement to the travel provider of a guarantee when insolvency. The guarantee requirement is a restriction on free competition since it may prevent certain operators from accessing the market. The CNMC points out that there is a certain lack of definition when determining the modes of guarantee and the forms of liability of the travel provider. In addition, the CNMC recommends extending the explicit mention of liability to the linked travel arrangements providers. On the other hand, the CNMC also questioned the exclusion of those tourist services that do not represent at least 25% of the value of the package and are not an essential part. That means these services are out of the scope of the protection given by the Directive. Although the Directive established this threshold, the CNMC asks to analyse the proportionality of that percentage. Finally, the Competition Authority considered in its initial report that it was necessary to specify whether the insolvency referred to the general insolvency regime or to any other commercial non-compliance. This last aspect has been clarified in the definitive drafting of the Consumer Protection Act. The law now establishes two types of liability, one of which is proper insolvency. Although its recommendations have not been fully taken into account, the assessment must not be seen as negative. The approved norm, a Royal Decree- -Law that modifies the Spanish Consumers Act, has basic contents and, therefore, it will be necessary to examine the evolution of the autonomic regulations, which will be responsible for legislating the subject in depth, in order to determine the real scope of the recommendations of this authority.