Tourism Law in Europe

2. The jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has applied general principles of the law of other states in its judgments and pronouncements to Member States. For this reason, and mirroring what we said regarding the UNWTO, we believe that the European Union should include tourism among its competences, especially in those sub- matters with a supra-state vocation such as tourism contracting. We also believe that having a Community tourism policy, which addresses both promotion and the elimination of bureaucratic burdens and regulatory harmonisation, would undoubtedly contribute to a remarkable progress in European integration and respond to its elementary objectives. IV. Conclusions and Recommendations of Lege Ferenda Considering all the foregoing, we can safely affirm that the law of tourism has a state nature, being so that, in some cases – such as Spain –, the competence ends up belonging to the territorial entities in which the State is organised. In the Spanish case, jurisdiction over tourism cannot be exclusive to the Autonomous Communities. The experience in this regard is disastrous: the content of a European Directive is incorporated into the internal legal system in order to achieve harmonisation in all the States of the Union. However, in Spain the legal regime is quite the opposite, possessing an uneven nature. It is extremely difficult to advocate for a state recovery of a jurisdiction when the territorial form contemplated by the Spanish Constitution in Article 2 and Title VIII is that of the composite or decentralised State. However, it is no less true that tourism as administrative intervention is part of the general planning of economic activities and administrative procedures, which find their competency basis in favour of the State in paragraphs 13 and 18 of Article 149.1 SC. Based on both competence titles, it is considered necessary to interpret tourism as a basic state regulatory competence, so that the Autonomous Communities can develop basic state legislation, which means safeguarding a common and homogeneous minimum baseline throughout the country’s national territory.