Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

988 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE Travel Directive, it should be very carefully considered what kind of regime shall apply to those persons who are not consumers. For example, the control of unfair terms according to the Unfair Contract Terms Directive (hereinafter, UCT Directive) 22 might be applied only to consumers. Therefore, it should be discussed whether the same regime shall be applied to persons other than consumers. The same might be considered in respect of other instruments of EU Consumer Protection Law, such as Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Directive on Consumer ADR 23 . As it might be decided from the travaux preparatoires , these considerations were not taken into account by drafting the amendments to the laws implementing the provisions of the Travel Directive. Moreover, it seems that this “double regime” has confused the drafters of the amendments. More examples concerning “consumer-traveller” dilemma will be provided in other parts of this article, however, here it might be useful to discuss several of them. For example, the Civil Code contains a separate chapter devoted to the regulation of consumer contracts (Chapter XVIII of the Civil Code). This chapter was included in the Civil Code by transposing the Directive on Consumer Rights. This chapter (Article 6.228/2 (2)) establishes the rules identical to the rules set out in Article 23 (2) and (3) of the Travel Directive. Obviously, these rules are applied only to consumers. However, the provisions of Article 23 (2) and (3) of the Travel Directive were not transposed in any other way. That is the right attitude as the repetition of the legal norms could not mean the effective legislation at all. However, it may occur questions such as “how these rules might be applied to travellers other than consumers?”. Moreover, the courts, by interpreting the legal norms regulating tourism services agreement, relied on the idea that these legal norms are designed to protect the consumer as the weaker party. This argument was decisive when interpreting the content of the legal rules or evaluating the behaviour of the business (tour organiser behaviour). The principle of the priority of protection of tourist (consumer) was many times mentioned in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, e.g. when evaluating the duty to provide information 24 . Therefore, it is questionable whether there is a reason to change 22 Council Directive 93/13/EEC, of 5 April 1993, on unfair terms in consumer contracts. 23 Directive 2013/11/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 21 May 2013, on alternative dispute resolution for consumer disputes and amending Regulation (EC) No. 2006/2004 and Directive 2009/22/ EC (Directive on consumer ADR). 24 The ruling of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, 10 May 2010, case No. 3K-3-201/2010.