Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

248 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE basis of article 4, Member States may not maintain or introduce of their own volition, provisions diverging from those laid down in the directive and article 23 statutes, considering their imperative nature 8 . The cornerstone of the European legislator’s interests is the protection of the traveller, but, at the same time, it mitigates his claims, as they’re often out of step with respect to the expectations of the journey undertaken. In fact, the criterion regarding the relevance of services and disservices with respect to travel becomes central to the whole norm. Thus irrelevant changes, irrelevant variations of the price become legally negligible. 2. THE “RATIO” OF THE TRANSFER OF THE PACKAGE CONTRACT The hypothesis of transfer of the package, as a remedy to the impossibility for the traveller to use it, had already been foreseen in the past by the International Convention on Travel Contract 9 . The institute is subsequently also governed by Directive 90/314 in Article 4 paragraph 3 10 , again as a form of protection for the consumer who is unable to take part in the trip and maintained, albeit with some modifications, in Directive 2015/2302 Article 9 11 . Before analysing the innovations introduced by the European revision and trying to understand whether, through the recent legislative provision, there has 8 Italian D. lgs. 62/2018, implementing the Directive, is therefore extremely faithful to the content of the Directive. 9 Signed in Brussels the 23d of April 1970. 10 The article reads textually: “ Where the consumer is prevented from proceeding with the package, he may transfer his booking, having first given the organizer or the retailer reasonable notice of his intention before departure, to a person who satisfies all the conditions applicable to the package. The transferor of the package and the transferee shall be jointly and severally liable to the organizer or retailer party to the contract for payment of the balance due and for any additional costs arising from such transfer”. About the article 4.3 see, among the others: Lezza, I contratti di viaggio ( Travel contracts ), in Aa.Vv., Diritto privato europeo (European private law), ed. by Lipari, Padova, vol II, p. 878; Izzo, Vacanze comunitarie. Quale tutela per il turista italiano in vista dell’attuazione della Direttiva CEE in materia di viaggi tutti compreso (Community holidays. What protection for the Italian tourist in view of the implementation of the EEC Directive on travel all included), in Aa.Vv., Saggi di diritto privato europeo (Essays of European private law), ed. by PArdolesi, Napoli, 1995, p. 314; Ciurnelli, Il contratto di viaggio ( The travel contract ), in Quaderni della Camera di Commercio di Perugia (Notebooks of the Perugia Chamber of Commerce), n. 47, Perugia, 1992, p. 92. 11 The possibility of transferring the contract is foreseen in whereas number 30, which affirms: “ Since packages are often purchased a long time before their performance, unforeseen events may occur. Therefore the traveller should, under certain conditions, be entitled to transfer a package travel contract to another traveller. In such situations, the organiser should be able to recover his expenses, for instance if a sub-contractor requires a fee for changing the name of the traveller or for cancelling a transport ticket and issuing a new one ”.