On Wednesday 18 December, the Member States’ ambassadors to the Council of the European Union (Coreper) adopted their position (negotiating mandate) on the revised ‘Package Travel’ Directive. This revision aims to make the protection of travellers more effective and to simplify certain aspects of the 2015 directive. According to our information, Italy and Germany abstained on this vote.
In its position (see EUROPE 13547/16), the Council limits the scope of the Directive by giving a clearer definition of package travel and excluding from its scope ‘linked travel arrangements’ (‘LTAs’) in order to improve the legal certainty of the text.
Travellers are invited to conclude an additional contract for another type of travel service, such as car hire or a transfer, when they purchase it online. In such cases, the trader is obliged to inform the traveller, by means of a clear and visible notice before the conclusion of the new contract, whether or not the second booking constitutes a package.
The negotiating mandate also strengthens the rights of travellers when they decide to cancel the package due to extraordinary and unavoidable circumstances, whether at the place of departure or destination. In such cases, travellers should be able to cancel the package without paying cancellation fees.
As far as ‘vouchers’ are concerned, the Council’s position sets out in detail how much they should cost and how they should be used, with a view to making them more attractive and harmonising the rules at EU level.
Finally, according to the text, Member States must ensure that in the event of an operator’s insolvency, travellers are informed that refunds will be made no later than nine months after the organiser’s insolvency. Member States may choose to shorten this period. The directive will also cover the publication of information on the insolvency of travel organisers.
For its part, the European Parliament has only just begun work on this issue.
To read the negotiating mandate, go to https://aeur.eu/f/evn (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)