KELIONIŲ DIREKTYVOS PERKĖLIMO Į NACIONALINĘ TEISĘ IR ĮGYVENDINIMO PROBLEMOS

Abstract

Since the entrance into the EU Lithuania has made a significant progress transposing, applying and implementing the EU law provisions. This article examines the new EU rules on package travel and its impact on national tourism law. The EU Commission’s aim to extend the protection offered by the 1990 EU Package Travel Directive in 2013 resulted into the proposal of the new Directive on Package Travel which was formally adopted by the European Parliament and Member States in November 2015. Member States had to implement the rules in national legislation by 1 January 2018. There was then a six-month transition period, until 1 July, which is the date when the national measures transposing the Directive started (should started) applying. The article, inter alia, states that this Directive has a maximum harmonisation approach (as opposed to an earlier minimum harmonisation approach), therefore the Member States cannot maintain or introduce provisions that diverge from the Directive except in concrete cases as listened in the Directive. For example, the Directive allows Member States to provide for the concurrent liability of the retailer of a package in addition to the liability of the organiser. The impact of the new EU rules on the national tourism law legislation is unquestionable. But their effectiveness depend on their timely and correct transposition. The  question in case is how professionally and how precisely the EU Member States transpose the EU law provisions into the national legal systems. Therefore this article examine how the new rules have been transposed into Lithuanian law, includes the overview of several practical problems arising by the implementation of the new rules and analyses if any follow-up measures are necessary.
The new Directive aims to achieve a robust level of consumer protection for package travel and linked travel arrangements. They are now adapted to the digital age and the new ways of booking holidays. The EU rules cover pre-arranged package holidays, but also self-customised packages, where the traveller chooses different elements from a single point of sale online or offline. Therefore, this article presents conclusions on how the Directive has changed the scope of consumer – traveller protection in Lithuania. These include findings about extending the definition of packages to include dynamic packaging, introducing new concept of traveller (which is wider than the concept of consumer) and introducing the new concept of linked travel arrangements, when the traveller purchases travel services at one point of sale, but through separate booking processes, or, after having booked one travel service on one website, is invited to book another service on a different website (for example, when the traveller books a flight on a website and is then invited to book a hotel on a different website). The authors conclude that as of Sunday 1 July, travellers booking package holidays will enjoy stronger consumer rights.  Finally, the authors present the recommendations about further improvements of Lithuania tourism law.