Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ARTICLE 10 | CHIARA TINCANI 259 suggests that the provisions should be extremely detailed, as if this could bind States better, forcing companies and customers to deal with a broader-spectrum, heavier regulation 7 sometimes aimed at covering all cases, by taking into account and solving all the problems existing in this product area. The previous Directive had left more room for action to the States with regard to the issues now referred to as “grey zones” 8 , as these matters were not considered or dealt with as if they were marginal and of no importance. This allegedly led to a fragmentation of national regulations, with high costs for companies and obstacles for those who wanted to operate across borders. Today, efforts are being made to achieve a more complete harmonisation 9 and it is forbidden to any country to maintain or introduce regulation diverging from the Directive, including regulation to guarantee higher protection to travellers 10 . This goal is by no means “alien” to EU goals but it is subordinate to a transversal regulation of the companies’ business and the way they carry them out, in order to guarantee a balanced market that respects the people, but also, above all, aims at laying the grounds for an incisive competition among all the possible operators, removing advantages that may be generated by the choices of the States 11 . Once the contract can be celebrated well before the time of its execution, it is considered that in the meantime a number of events may occur which may require unilateral modification of the negotiation clauses 12 . For example, art. 10 regulates the revision of the price and, if we compare it with the old art. 4, fourth paragraph, we will find some innovative elements. This new article also requires the inclusion of a provision in the contract that allows the changing of the amount, but art. 10 explicitly states and imposes that, if the referred clause mentioned in the agreement, allowing both increases and decreases in price and declares that the price revision shall depend on fluctuations in costs due to factors identified by art. 10, some more detailed than before. Then, in the new provision, the binding limit of maximum increase has been lowered from ten to 7 See Barend van Leeuwen, European standardisation of services and its impact on private law. Paradoxes of convergence, Oxford and Portland, 2017, 75 and following, even if the perspective from which the author moves is wider, as it is aimed at identifying a system of private European law. 8 See Directive 2015/2302/EU. 9 See Ribeiro Café, Package Travel Directive contractual parties and level of harmonisation, in Aa. Vv., The New Package Travel Directive, Eshte, 2017, 246 and following. 10 See art. 4 of Directive 2015/2302/EU . 11 See Directive 2015/2302/EU, 5th whereas clause. 12 See Directive 2015/2302/EU, 30th whereas clause.