Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ARTICLE 4 | PILAR JUANA GARCIA SAURA 203 c) Limited direct effect because it needs the transposition by the Member States, so that a legislative act is required. If the transposition is not completed within the time period given, the directives have vertical and horizontal direct effects, that is, they are directly applicable provided the rule is clear and precise and not subject to any condition. This direct effect does not exempt the State from the obligation of implementing the required internal provisions. d) If the directive is addressed to all Member States, it shall be published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), and it shall enter into force on the date specified or, in the absence thereof, on the twentieth day following the publication. If it is not addressed to all Member States, it shall be notified to those to whom it is addressed, one or various Member States, and it shall take effect upon such notification [article 297(2) TFEU, ex article 254(3) TEU]. Directives are the most frequently used legislative instrument in the European Union since they are intended to reach a basic harmonisation of the matter concerned in the different legal orders of the Member States, but leaving the States free to decide the form and the means of compliance. We can describe them as the minimum regulation that must be observed but, beyond those limits, the institutions with legislative competence of those States can legislate as they deem appropriate. They impose on States an obligation as to results. Significant aspects of private patrimonial law concerning relevant sectors like intellectual property, trading companies, insurance contracts, misleading advertising, unfair commercial practices, product liability, consumer contracts and electronic commerce, have been subject to harmonisation by means of directives. However, the foregoing does not prevent appreciating the fragmented nature of the Community private law. Although the existence of a significant set of legal texts can be observed in subjects like contract law, an overall assessment of Community private law leads to the observation that it is basically limited to punctual results in certain sectors. Since the regulatory instrument employed in the scope of private law is the directive, the standardisation does not imply unification, but only harmonisation that reduces the regulatory pluralism and is open to distortions caused by a late or wrong transposition. On the other side, the content of the directives facilitates a complex and wordy style of the transposition regulations in contrast to national codes. Therefore, the fact of giving certain direct effectiveness to directives has a significant impact. The inherent deficiencies in an instrument like the directive,