Sustainable Tourism Law

542 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW 2015 on package travel and linked travel arrangements. III. Some controversial issues: the protection of travellers in the event of insolvency of the purchaser. IV. The Draft Bill amending the Consolidated Text of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users. IV.1.- The reasons for an amendment of the regulation of travel packages in the Spanish legal system. IV.2.- The legal protection of tourists in the event of insolvency of the purchaser before the publication of the draft bill. IV.3.- The draft bill’s provisions about the guarantee that purchasers must provide to avoid insolvency. Bibliography. I. INTRODUCTION Last 23rd of March 2018, the Spanish Council of Ministers passed the draft bill amending the Consolidated Text of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users and other complementary acts 3 . The scope of this regulation will be the transposition of Directive (EU) 2015/2302 on package travel and linked travel 4 into the Spanish legal system. By the 1 st of January 2018, the Directive should have been transposed into the national legal systems, whilst it is foreseen to come into effect by the 1 st July of this very year. At first, Spanish legislators remained silent for a long time about any modification of the current act where travel packages are regulated. Everything pointed to a delayed transposition into the Spanish regulation. This has been the case. Nevertheless, as we have mentioned, the published draft bill will be dealt with by means of an urgency procedure to try to comply with the deadline stipulated by the European Directive 5 , so as to try to avoid any eventual sanction. The urgency is also justified by the difficulties that may arise from the possibility of a direct implementation of the Directive, considering its consequences and effects. 3 The text of the draft bill is available at https://www.msssi.gob.es/normativa/audiencia/docs/Aleyviajes combinados.pdf. 4 Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 25 November 2015 on package travel and linked travel arrangements, amending Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 and Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 90/314/EEC , OJEU, L 326, 11-12-2015 . 5 In any case, the deadline for the transposition of the Directive has already passed. By the moment this paper has been written, legislative works in the Spanish Parliament for the modification of the regulation of travel packages are still being developed.