Filenews 8 December 2025 - by Theano Thiopoulou
The Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement last week on the revision of the Package Travel Directive, which aims to protect travellers more effectively. The draft law adopted informally by Parliament and Council negotiators clarifies the definition of a package travel, the conditions for cancelling a trip and the rights of travellers to information, assistance and reimbursement in a variety of situations, including the event of the bankruptcy of their travel organizer or extraordinary circumstances that cause disruptions to the trip.
The agreement now needs to be formally approved by both the European Parliament and the Council early next year, before it can enter into force. EU countries will then have 28 months to adapt their legislation to the new rules and another 6 months to start implementing the new provisions.
What consumers need to know: The bill passed informally by the negotiators of the Parliament and the Council clarifies the definition of a travel package, the conditions for cancelling a trip, and the rights of travellers to information, assistance and reimbursement in various situations, including in the event of bankruptcy of the organiser of their trip or extraordinary circumstances that cause disruptions to the trip. Online purchases, where linked booking processes allow easy combinations of services offered by separate merchants, will be considered a package if the first trader passes on the traveller's personal data to the other merchants and the contract is concluded within 24 hours.
If their trip organiser goes bankrupt, customers must receive a refund for the cancelled services from the insolvency guarantee funds within 6 months. In exceptional cases of high workload, this deadline may be extended to 9 months. If unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances arise at the travel destination or point of departure before a trip or affect the trip, travellers have the right to cancel their trip without penalty, with a full refund. Such cases should be assessed on an individual basis and official travel recommendations will be important elements to be taken into account when considering whether or not it is justified to terminate the contract due to unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances.
However, a formal travel warning alone will not be considered a sufficient reason for a refund after a trip cancellation, as EU countries do not use travel warnings in a coordinated manner. If travellers are aware of any risk at the time of booking, but decide to purchase a trip nevertheless, they cannot request a cancellation without a termination fee.
The negotiators also agreed that tour operators should establish a clear regulation for complaint handling to ensure that reported issues are addressed within a reasonable timeframe. They must acknowledge receipt of a complaint within 7 days and give the customer a reasoned response within 60 days.
