Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

984 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE different description of the term ‘tourist’) of legal norms set out in these two legal acts were not eluded. Moreover, during the implementation process of the old Travel Directive, the legislator also struggled with some inconsistency problems; therefore, amending the provisions transposing this directive several times. Looking at the case-law of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, which was based on the norms, regulating the travellers’ protection, buying travel packages or separate travel services, it can be noted that there were not many cases in this field (about 17 for the period from 2001 till the present 14 ), at least not many of them reached the court of cassation. The main issues, which were raised in these cases, were the breach of information duty; the poor quality of services; the distinction between the consequences when the provided services are of not satisfactory quality and when they are not provided at all; the interpretation of the travel package concept; the liability for the third parties, involved in the performance of the package, actions; the safeguarding of the obligations of the organiser by means of a suretyship insurance, etc. The new Travel Directive was incorporated into existing Lithuanian legal acts. As in the case of the preceding Directive, the provisions of the new Travel Directive were also integrated into the same legal acts – the Civil Code and the Law on Tourism 15 . The provisions of legal acts transposing the new Travel Directive are very much interrelated, for example the Civil Code refers to the Law on Tourism (Article 6.474 (2) references the Law on Tourism concerning the terms “travel retailer”, “tour organiser”, “package tour”, “tourist” and “tourist service provider”); and, vice versa , the Law on Tourism makes some references to the provisions of the Civil Code (Articles 5, 6 and others of the Law onTourism). It is obvious that these two acts should be read together by interpreting travel package contracts 16 . Therefore, the technique of the transposition of the Travel Directive into Lithuanian law was not changed. The amendments to the Civil Code and Law on Tourism were adopted on 30 June 2018 and came into force on 17 July 2018. Consequently, the new directive was transposed into Lithuanian legislation with a slight delay. 14 The court practice, reflecting on an interpretation of the new provisions, does not exist yet. 15 Republic of Lithuania Law No. XIII-1448, amending article 6.228/3 and section three of the chapter of book six Civil Code and the Annex to the Code; Republic of Lithuania Law No. XIII-1447, amending the Lithuanian Law on Tourism No. VIII-667. Moreover, several provisions of the amended Law on Tourism were changed in 2019 after these amendments (Republic of Lithuania Law No. XIII-1447, amending Articles 9, 10, 15, 23, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 41 of the Lithuanian Law on Tourism No. XIII-1990). By the way, several aspects concerning the protection of insolvency were clarified. 16 The same way of interpretation was used in the court practice by application of the previous provisions.