The National Association of Travel Agencies (ANAT) criticizes the transposition into Romanian legislation of European Directive 2032/2015 regarding the guarantee of travel packages.
ANAT representatives state that the Ministry of Tourism and the National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC) „are submitting for approval a catastrophic Simple Ordinance draft for the tourism industry,” a project that will lead to the closure of many travel agencies, mostly SMEs, and consequently to more expensive vacations.
ANAT representatives say they continued discussions with the authorities regarding the transposition of the said directive for two weeks, but no recommendation from tourism specialists was taken into account by the authorities; the current text to be transposed into an ordinance has not been modified at all in the guarantee segment, according to an ANAT press release.
Furthermore, the draft normative act has been complicated, with the current form violating the European Directive in the chapter regarding the liability of travel agencies. „The new normative act also provides that an intermediary travel agency in Romania, which sells the products of European organizers in a free and single market, be co-liable. At the same time, if an agency intermediates the products of Romanian organizers, it will not be co-liable. This is discretionary and violates the European Directive. The Romanian consumer is 100% protected in case of contractual violations by organizers, regardless of where they are headquartered in the UE, having the possibility to complain to the European Consumer Center in Romania or to the courts in the country, based on a European Regulation,” states the president of ANAT, Nicolae Demetriade.
Travel agencies in Romania intermediate hundreds of thousands of offers and hotels from other countries, provided by European organizers who, everywhere in Europe, are held liable for their offers, but this does not happen in the normative act proposal from the Ministry of Tourism and ANPC, says the ANAT leadership.
The lack of action by the authorities has led to the fact that insurance mechanisms, as required by the European Directive, simply do not exist in the Romanian market.
„In addition, there are no chances of them being created in the near future, because the number of insurers who have concluded such policies in the past has decreased year after year. Regarding insurance policies with very high values, of millions of euros, insurers do not even want to hear about them. The current form of the ordinance shows that the Ministry of Tourism wants an overnight full guarantee of the travel packages sold, without an upper limit, which is impossible to implement by any serious guarantee mechanism, whether insurance or a guarantee fund,” states the ANAT leadership.
„The non-compliant transposition of this European Directive will immediately lead to the triggering of the infringement procedure, with which Romania has been threatened since 2014,” add the ANAT representatives.
Source: Profit
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is ANAT criticizing the new draft ordinance?
ANAT claims the draft is catastrophic for the industry, ignores specialist recommendations, and will lead to the closure of many small and medium-sized agencies.
What liability issues does this normative act raise?
The draft imposes co-liability on intermediary agencies only for European organizers, not Romanian ones, thus violating European regulations regarding the single market.
How is the tourism insurance market affected?
Authorities have failed to create the necessary insurance mechanisms, and insurers refuse to issue multi-million euro policies without an upper guarantee limit.