Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ARTICLE 4 | PILAR JUANA GARCIA SAURA 205 – Directive on credit agreements for consumers (2008/48/EC) 5 ; – Directive on timeshare, long-term holiday product, resale and exchange contracts (2008/122/EC) 6 ; – Directive on consumer rights (2011/83/EC) 7 ; – and, currently, Directive on package travel and linked travel arrangements (2015/2302/EU) 8 . There are arguments for and against maximum harmonisation. The Commission states in the recitals of the previous directives arguments to defend the legislative policy of maximum harmonisation. The arguments are usually recurrent: full harmonisation reinforces legal certainty for both consumers and traders. Additionally, maximum harmonisation implies removing the barriers stemming from the fragmentation of the rules and, therefore, the completion of the internal market is more feasible. All in all, arguments in favour are related to the necessary defence of consumers, as they are the legally weak party of the contract, by considering that maximum harmonisation provides a more homogeneous protection. Those that defend economic agents are against maximum harmonisation because they believe that legal divergence does not negatively affect the development of internal markets or cross-border transactions. They defend that the law applied by Member States is already a strongly harmonised law but that there is still fragmentation due to the application of national laws, although just a residual application; but they consider that this situation does not affect markets. Moreover, a homogenous harmonisation can cause that those Member States where the consumer protection is higher than that covered by the maximum directive consider it necessary to implement new rules involving lower protection levels. 5 Directive 2008/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 on credit agreements for consumers and repealing Council Directive 87/102/EEC. OJEU No. 133, of 22 May 2008. 6 Directive 2008/122/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 January 2009 on the protection of consumers in respect of certain aspects of timeshare, long-term holiday product, resale and exchange contracts. OJEU No. 33, of 3 February 2009. 7 Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights, amending Council Directive 93/13/EEC and Directive 1999/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 85/577/EEC and Directive 97/7/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council. OJEU No. 304, of 22 November 2011. 8 Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on package travel and linked travel arrangements, amending Regulation (EC) No. 2006/2004 and Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 90/314/EEC. OJEU No. 58, of 11 December 2015.