Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

636 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE “harmonization”, what is meant by “coordination”. Certainly, both are covered by the concept of “rapprochement”; what changes is the degree of impact on national legislation. Harmonization is more intense, with the aim of creating common legislation in order to achieve uniformity of legislation. The harmonization is aimed at the direct and contextual replacement of national regulations through a single discipline, which, in general, is pursued through the use of Directives and the instrument of the Regulation (Article 288 TFEU). However, this result can also be achieved with detailed directives and, at this point, the Regulation would meet the needs of mere coordination. Coordination between the internal legal systems of the Member States is aimed at eliminating or reducing the most marked differences between them. This is achieved through the adoption of common provisions to avoid conflicts between States. The choice between harmonization and coordination is mostly political. In any case, in the field of tourism taxation, both lines are lacking and more action is needed. 4.2. The need for action to reorganise the system of VAT rates A hypothetical tax measure in the tourism sector should primarily concern the reordering of VAT rates on tourism services 26 : in this respect, the reference to the 2016 Moscovici project 27 , and to the study on the revision of the special VAT scheme for travel agents and on the options for reform are essential 28 . Furthermore, it would also be essential to achieve an appropriate degree of tax harmonization or coordination in the tourism sector in general together with the harmonization or coordination of local taxes. This is probably the most critical sector in the taxation of tourism: just think of the municipal residence tax. For example, this tax has not yet been adopted by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Greece. It would also be essential to reorganise measures on sustainable cultural tourism and policies to protect the environment and cultural heritage. The need for harmonization was already felt in 2010, when the EU Commission also addressed the issue of VAT rates in its Green Paper on the 26 On the importance of VAT in the tourism sector, see, for all, M. Iglesias Caridad, The taxation of sustainable tourism in Spain , in Franceschelli, Morandi and Torres (edited by), Eshte Inatel Alentejo, Lisbon, 2018. 27 The reference is to Moscovici Project, 2016, in http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-3443_en.htm. 28 Study on the review of the VAT, A special Scheme for travel agents and options for reform , Final Report T AXUD/2016/AO-05.