Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ARTICLE 18 | PATRICIA BENAVIDES VELASCO 423 In fact, in the internal market for services there was a significant mistrust between the Member States that imposed on everyone its own rules for access to the market and then imposed different controls to the cross-border activities carried out by the companies within its territory 8 . With the approval of the Services Directive, Member States have committed themselves to providing mutual aid, to respond to the information requests made by any other Member State and to perform the relevant inspections or inquiries, when required. That is why these obligations imply the impossibility to deny performing the cooperation tasks. The national authorities proposed for the compliance with these tasks must provide the information requested on any services provider that has its registered office in its territory. Despite the fact that the Services Directive considers that the establishment of the contact points determined by every Member State is a specific measure and that their activity is exceptional, we have already considered in the introduction to this essay that article 18 of the Directive on travel packages and linked travel arrangements expressly requests their implementation. The proper operation of these central contact points requires the transfer of information between them, to be as agile and fluid as possible, seeing as their objective is to ease the administrative cooperation and the control of the organisers operating in different Member States. Because of that, the communication between the different contact points should be made by means of an electronic information exchange system that allows a direct and fast contact between all the relevant authorities. 3.2. Information exchange Article 18 of the Directive on travel packages and linked travel arrangements states that these central contact points will be the way for Member States to provide any relevant information on the requirements stablished by its national regulation about the securities, in order to protect travellers in case of insolvency of the organiser and, when relevant, of the retailer. They will also provide information on the companies providing such a guarantee in cases of insolvency of the organisers established in their territory. 8 See Report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the state of the internal market for services presented under the first stage of the Internal Market Strategy for Services . Doc. COM (2002) 441 final.