Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

904 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE regulations 8 and favour the creation of an effective “European Union travel space”. Given the level of detail of the Directive and the objective of maximum harmonization pursued by the European Union legislator, the Legislative transposition Decree is faithful to the Directive (EU) 2015/2302, whose Italian version was accepted as “basic text”, even though not always technically correct from a legal point of view 9 . The new rules differ from the wording of the European Union provisions only in cases where the need to confirm the new regulations to the national system’s legal institutions have made a specific terminological adjustment indispensable. Purely by way of example, the legislator uses “package travel contract” formula, which due to supposed requirements of adherence to the Directive text has been maintained, instead of the expression “travel contract” which would have been more in line with the national legal tradition 10 . On the contrary, some expressions adopted in the Legislative Decree respond to the need to offer a correct classification of the figures provided for by the Directive within the Italian law. In this sense, for example, the formula “excessively onerous” was chosen, instead of the non-technical “disproportionate costs” (art. 13, par. 3, lett. b , of the Directive); the term “compensation”, instead of “reimbursement”, which is technically more correct; the expression “withdrawal”, instead of “cancellation” (art. 5, par. 1, letter h , of the Directive); the sole notion of “failure to 8 See Recitals from 2 to 6 of the Directive (UE) 2015/2302; for a critical evaluation of the choice made by the European legislator in the art. 4 of the Directive (“Level of harmonization”) see S. Keiler – F. Morandi, Package travel and assisted travel arrangements , cit., p. 5, and Id., The Directive on package travel and linked travel arrangements: The traveller protection in a full harmonization approach , in Franceschelli V. – Morandi F. – Torres C. (eds.), The New Package Travel Directive , cit., p. 401. 9 G. De Cristofaro, La nuova disciplina europea dei contratti di viaggio (dir. 2015/2302/UE) , cit., p. 12, notes that in the Italian version of the Directive (UE) 2015/2302, according to the translation that appears in the official documents, always appears the expression “tourist services”, while in the other language versions the adjective “travel” is always used to qualify the services ( travel service , service de voyage , servicio de viaje , Reiseleistung ), except for the particular category of services identified by art. 3, n. 1, lett. d , of the Directive for which the adjective “tourist” is used. 10 The Italian tradition dates back to the Law 27 December 1977, No. 1084, of “Ratification and execution of the International Convention on Travel Contract (CCV), signed in Brussels on 23 April 1970”; see V. Roppo, Commento alla Convenzione internazionale relativa al contratto di viaggio , in Nuove leggi civ. comm. , 1978, p. 1757; G. Romanelli – G. Silingardi, Contratti di viaggi organizzati , in Enc. giur. , IX, Roma, 1988, p. 1; G. Silingardi – M. Riguzzi – E Gragnoli, Responsabilità degli operatori turistici , in Riv. giur. circol. trasp. , 1988, p. 24; V. Cuffaro, Contratto turistico , in Dig. disc. civ. , IV, Utet, Torino, 1989, p. 294; C.S. Carrassi, Il contratto di viaggio , Utet, Torino, 1991, p. 531; V. Buonocore, Il contratto di viaggio , in V. Buonocore – A. Luminoso – G. Fauceglia – G. Capo – R. Rosapepe – T. D’Amaro (eds.), Contratti d’impresa , I, Giuffrè, Milano, 1993, p. 797; G. Silingardi – V. Zeno- -Zencovich (eds.), La tutela del turista , ESI, Napoli, 1993; S. Monticelli, Il contratto di viaggio , in G. Ciurnelli – S. Monticelli – G. Zuddas, Il contratto di albergo. Il contratto di viaggio. I contratti del tempo libero , Milano, 1994, p. 129.