Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ARTICLE 25 | F. JAVIER MELGOSA ARCOS 511 over the following matters: “the promotion and planning of tourism within its territorial area”. This is not a mandatory instruction, but this possibility is offered in the Spanish Constitution, although in the seventeen Statutes of Autonomy in Spain this exclusive competence is contemplated, with small variations in the wording; and, in addition, jurisdiction on tourism was one of the first to be effective for new territorial entities with the transfer of human and material resources. This attribution of Article 148.1.18 means that the autonomous governments can be holders of all functions and public powers in relation to tourism, or more forcefully, tourism is decidedly an activity of the Autonomous Communities in articles 148 and 149 of the Spanish Constitution. On the other hand, article 149 of the same text does not reserve to the State any direct attribution on tourism. But this situation should not mislead us, since the government administration may intervene more or less intensely on tourism, not inferring in the competences of the CCAA, but as an inevitable consequence of the transversal and multidisciplinary nature of tourism. Indeed, there are state competency titles that may, and in fact affect indirectly, but transcendently, in tourism; for instance, we could think of a first approximation in foreign affairs, the general management of the economy, immigration, transport and communications, private law, etc. In the matter currently concerning us, article 149.1 of the Spanish Constitution gives the State jurisdiction on commercial (6th) and civil (8th) legislation. Under these competences were approved the 21/1995 of 6 July regulatory law on package travel and 42/1998 of 15 December regulatory law on the rights of use by turn of real property for tourism use and taxation rules, aiming to incorporate into Spanish law the Council Directives 90/314/EEC of 13 June 1990 and 94/47/EEC of 26 October 1990. The first was repealed by RLD 1/2007 of 16 November , by which the modified text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws (TRLGDCU) was approved, Book IV (Articles 150 to 165) covers the regulation on package travel and is the current standard at present. In other words, the TRLGDCU incorporates the regulation on package travel into the modification, which is a transposition of the Council Directive on consumer protection. It states the specific legal regime on contracting with consumers, which is not affected by the state sectoral regulations on tourism. The TRLGDCU has been modified by Law 3/2014 of 27 March , introducing, among others, important changes in relation to the concept of consumer and entrepeneur, and by Law 15/2015 of