Sustainable Tourism Law

694 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW convention in order to reinforce its effectiveness. The English text of the UNWTO Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics, the first convention of the Organization, was approved by A/RES/707(XXII) during the 22 nd General Assembly which took place in Chengdu, China in September 2017 22 . The Framework Convention will be officially adopted once the approved English text is available in all five official languages of the Organization 23 . At the EU level, tourism was not mentioned in any legislative text until the Treaty ofMaastricht (signed onFebruary 7, 1992) 24 , while sustainable development has been one of the fundamental objectives of the European Union since it was included in the Treaty of Amsterdam (signed on October 2, 1997) and mainstreamed into EU policies and legislation, via the EU Sustainable Development Strategy 25 , the EU 2020 Strategy, and through the EU’s Better Regulation Agenda 26 . Since the mid-90s sustainable development of tourism has become a priority of EU Institutions, which is reflected in a range of Community activities directly targeting the tourism sector, including measures aiming to encourage sustainable tourism: Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on “Working together for the future of European tourism” (COM (2001) 665); Commission’s Report on Community measures affecting tourism, which were undertaken in 2001 and 2002 (SEC (2004) 24); Communication fromtheCommission on “Basic orientations for the sustainability of European tourism” (COM (2003) 71 final); Communication from the Commission on “A renewed Tourism Policy: Towards a stronger partnership for 22 Available at: http://cf.cdn.unwto.org/sites/all/files/pdf/a22_16_approval_or_adoption_of_the_convention_on_ tourism_ethics_rev.2_en.pdf. 23 Available at: http://ethicsconventions.unwto.org/. 24 Maastricht Treaty was signed on the 7th of February 1992 and contained reference to tourism in Art. 3: “For the purposes set out in Article 2 of the Treaty, the activities of the Community shall include, as provided in the Treaty, and in accordance with the timetable set out therein: … (t) measures in the sphere of energy, civil protection and tourism”. However, it was the Lisbon Treaty, signed 15 years later (13 December 2007), which changed the political framework for tourism in the EU towards more integrated approach to tourism. For the first time, tourism was mentioned in a Treaty among the policy responsibilities of the Union’s institutions. Articles 6 (d) and 195 of the Lisbon Treaty attributed a new competence of the European Union to the tourism sector and changed the institutional context for the European tourism. See: Kardoulia, E., The legal framework of tourism in the European Union , available at: https://egyzislaw.com/articles/item/62-the-legal-framework-of-tourism-in-the-europea. 25 The overall aim of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy is to identify and develop actions to enable the EU to achieve a continuous long-term improvement of quality of life through the creation of sustainable communities able to manage and use resources efficiently, able to tap the ecological and social innovation potential of the economy and in the end able to ensure prosperity, environmental protection and social cohesion. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/sustainable-development/strategy/index_en.htm. 26 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/sustainable-development/index_en.htm.