Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

822 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE They had an accident during this excursion. The Court decided that such excursion was not included in the package. It observed that the booking and payment were directly made to the local supplier, without the travel agent intervention. The liability of the travel agent was not retained 23 . ii. Expectations of French tour operators and travel agents The French provisions are very favourable to the travellers who purchased a package. Nevertheless, these provisions clearly affected the competitiveness of French organisers and retailers on the European market. The current liability regime (strict liability) involves significant costs for French travel professionals, in particular in terms of insurance. Such costs ultimately have an effect on the price of travel products sold by French actors and thus, on their competitiveness in the internal market. Upon the adoption of the Directive, it was observed that the variety of responsibility regimes applied in Member States was restraining the internal market in terms of travel packages 24 . This explains the reasons for the full harmonisation process (Article 4) expressly provided in the new PTD, and Member States cannot normally introduce more or less stringent provisions in national laws. With the implementation of the new PTD and considering the principle of full harmonisation, French travel professionals expect the regime of liability to become more flexible, at least to a similar extent compared to other European professionals. The implementation measures have not been adopted in France when writing the present article, despite a consultation process between the travel sector and the administration, launched in early 2016. The government has therefore been authorized by the French parliament to draft an ordinance transposing the new PTD 25 . The draft ordinance should normally be adopted before the end of this year. The extent of responsibility of the French organisers will thus remain undisclosed until the ordinance is published. 23 Cass. Civ. 1, 15 January 2015, nr. 13-26466. 24 See Recital 6. 25 Article 64 of the Law nr. 2016-1888 of 28 December 2016.