Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

504 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE Directive and shall take all measures necessary to ensure that they are implemented. The penalties provided for shall be effective, proportionate and dissuasive . Directive 2015/2302, obliges Member States to transpose that standard by 1 January 2018. They shall apply those measures from 1 July 2018. To do so, the Spanish lawmaker chose to amend the consolidated text of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users (TRLGDCU) and other complementary laws, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007 of 16 November, even though PANIZA has warned “the introduction of this amendment within the TRLGDCU is striking – although this is the solution that was chosen in relation to package travel – when the concept of consumer is not the same as the one raised in that regulation, on a general basis. In addition to the specialty of this type of contracts; the specialty has helped so that other matters would be ruled by other special laws, which has not happened in this case”. The transposition – with almost a year of delay – was carried out by Royal Decree-law 23/2018, of December 21 , modifying the TRLGDCU, whose Fourth Book already contained the specific regulation on package travel. The Royal Decree-Law was published in BOE on 27 December 2018 and entered into force on 28 December 2018 (By Resolution of 22 January 2019, the publication of the Agreement for the validation of Royal Decree-Law 23/2018 is ordered). The text does not present many modifications with respect to the basic content of the Directive, reducing it to its incorporation into Spanish law, with few variations. Among these variations, we have to highlight, as GRAJERA notes, the decision of the Spanish Legislator to opt for a passenger protection higher than the standard set by the Directive, incorporating some modifications that benefit travellers and extending many of the rights and obligations of package travel organisers to “retailers” (an entrepreneur different from the travel organiser who sells or offers package travels by an organiser, previously called “retail trader” in the TRLGDCU). He also highlights that, in addition to the guarantee provided by the Directive to reimburse payments made in the event of travel organiser insolvency, the Spanish Legislator requires to both, organisers and retailers, the constitution of a guarantee of contractual liability to respond, on a general basis, about the fulfillment of the obligations derived from the provision of its services.