REFUND FOR CANCELLED TRAVEL DURING THE PANDEMIC: COMMISSION DECIDES TO REFER SLOVAKIA TO THE COURT OF JUSTICE

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to assess the conformity of the Slovak solutions with regard to refunds for cancelled travels and their conformity with EU law, i.e. the Package Travel Directive. In the article, the position is analysed of the European Commission and its reflection to Slovak legislation on refunds of travels after cancellation of the breach concerning travels by the travel agencies. Method. Legal analyses regarding the Slovak amendment of Package Travel Act and comparison of its provisions with the Package Travel Directive. Findings. In the article, the way is described as to how the Slovak legislator solved the reimbursement for cancelled travels due to pandemic situation. Also provided is the statement regarding the reasoned opinion of the European Commission that followed the adoption of the amendment of the Slovak Package Travel Act. The authors analyse compatibility of the COVID PTA Amendment with European Union law. In the article, it is described that due to time constraints set by the COVID PTA Amendment for refund because of cancelled travels, non-compliance with EU legislation had probably expired by September 2021. Research and conclusions limitations. The research was focused on EU (Package Travel Directive) and Slovak legislation (Package Travel Act) and assessment of compliance of Slovak with EU law. Practical implications. The article draws attention to the question whether some effects of the COVID PTA Amendment will persist after September 2021 provided that the topical purpose of this legislation to postpone refund for travellers has already been accomplished by setting the deadline for 14 September 2021. Secondly, it raises the question of possible damage suffered by the individuals due to the breach of EU law by the Slovak Republic. Originality. As the article is focused on the most current situation, this topic has not been discussed by other authors in other studies. The authors assume a view that makes assessment regarding legality of the Slovak amendment for Package Travel Act with EU law. Type of paper. Research paper.

Assessment of Farm Accountancy Data Network System in Croatia

Croatia is the newest member of the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). So far, no comprehensive evaluation of the national FADN system has been conducted, and this study based on a survey of staff involved and a desktop analysis was conducted to fill this gap. The three main elements of the Croatian FADN system are the National FADN Committee, the Ministry of Agriculture as Liaison Agency (LA) and the Croatian Bureau for statistics. All FADN survey activities are carried out by LA and the main burden of data collection lies with the data collectors and the farms. The system operates in accordance with relevant EU legislation and currently its main objective appears to be the fulfilment of its obligations to the FADN network. Other benefits like analysis of CAP measures etc. are not yet exploited. The main challenges are further development of quality assurance systems, the motivation of staff and farms to participate, the increased use of FADN data, and the expected changes in transformation of the FADN into the sustainability data network (FSDN). Croatia will successfully meet these challenges if it strengthens its capacity for FADN research and data analysis and establishes an effective quality assurance system.

Comparative characteristic between European and Ukrainian legal mechanisms for regulating the discharges of pollutants

The article examines and compares the structures and basic norms of legal mechanisms for controlling the discharge (CD) of polluting substances (PS) from point technogenical sources into surface waters of EU and Ukrainian legislation. To analyze the systemic construction of the European CDPS and a meaningful study of its main elements, a tool has been identified, which is the chain of spreading of restrictive (limiting) legal influence, its legislative links and regulative norms. The structure and composition of this chain of European CDPS are identified, PS flows and information links between restrictive standards are studied. It is noted that the main branches of the structure of the European CDPS are technological and environmental legal influences. The second branch is additional. It complements the first one for some priority substances and it uses to limit the discharge of PS properties of the area of the water body which adjacent to the discharge of PS, the so-called mixing zones (MZ). The place and significance of the CDPS subinstitution in the European water legislation are investigated. The peculiarities of the European regulatory standards of the CDPS are determined. The comparison of the European and Ukrainian CDPSs using the scale of features that characterize the links in the chain of limiting legal influence is fulfilled. The concordance of the features of the Ukrainian CDPS to the European one was assessed by the categories: “fully compliant”, “partially compliant”, “does not contradict”, “does not comply”, “not regulated by EU legislation”. The distribution of concordance assessments testifies to the fundamental difference between the European CDPS and the Ukrainian one. The most important differences of legal discordance are investigated. It is concluded that the main difference between the two CDPS subinstitutions is that Ukrainian regulation is based only on the economic use of the assimilative capacity of the MZ. It is emphasized that the concept of MZ for more than 60 years of its actual use has not received proper legal justification in Ukrainian law. In contrast to the Ukrainian regulation, the main influence of the European CDPS is aimed at directly limiting the sources of PS. The priority changes in the water legislation of Ukraine for the implementation of the requirements of the EU legislation on CDPS, have been proposed.

Behavioral and Comparative Analysis of the Information Paradigm in Consumer Law

This article examines the issue of information asymmetry in consumer law and deliberates on the necessity of regulation of the status of a consumer and their protection mechanisms. It is evident that the relevant Georgian law, by and large, does not guarantee the sufficient safeguarding level and thus the approximation to the respective EU legislation cannot be deemed successful in toto. Furthermore, this article analyzes the Draft Law of Georgia on the Protection of Consumer Rights and displays the possible challenges. In addition, the special emphasis is on consumer credit contracts. In the wake of the growing importance of behavioral analysis and its impact on the law and economics, the standard of an in- formed and rational consumer, which constitutes a cornerstone of the EU consumer law, is now highly debated. By reviewing some findings in behavioral law and economics, along with the international legislation and case law, it is argued that some im- plications of behavioralism should be taken into account in the field of consumer law.

Assessing the First MSFD Implementation Cycle in Greece under Biodiversity and Contaminants Descriptors

The present work constitutes an assessment of the first implementation cycle of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive 2008/56/EC in Greece by focusing on biodiversity and contaminants, i.e., descriptors 1 (biodiversity), 4 (food webs), 6 (seafloor integrity), 8 (contaminants), and 9 (contaminants in seafood), and by following the directive’s requirements regarding Articles 8—Initial Assessment, 9—Definition of Good Environmental Status, 10—Establishment of Environmental Targets, 11—Monitoring Programmes, and 13—Programmes of Measures. In this study, the analysis that was conducted investigated the integration of the Com Dec 2010/477/EU criteria and the indicators that have been applied for each descriptor and the approaches and standards that have been used in order to determine the adequacy of the directive’s implementation towards the achievement of the GES, the consistency of Articles 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13, and the integration of existing EU legislation and regional/ international agreements or policies as well as the level of coherence among EU Mediterranean MSs. Overall, Greece addressed the requirements of Articles 8, 9, and 10 rather inadequately for D1, D4, D6 and partially adequately for D8, D9, integrating existing legislation to a certain extent. The implementation of Article 11 was satisfactory for all of the descriptors regarding monitoring the needs and the progress towards GES, whereas the measures that were established under Article 13 need to be improved in the forthcoming update.

Hybrid AI Framework for Legal Analysis of the EU Legislation Corrigenda

This paper presents an AI use-case developed in the project “Study on legislation in the era of artificial intelligence and digitization” promoted by the EU Commission Directorate-General for Informatics. We propose a hybrid technical framework where AI techniques, Data Analytics, Semantic Web approaches and LegalXML modelisation produce benefits in legal drafting activity. This paper aims to classify the corrigenda of the EU legislation with the goal to detect some criteria that could prevent errors during the drafting or during the publication process. We use a pipeline of different techniques combining AI, NLP, Data Analytics, Semantic annotation and LegalXML instruments for enriching the non-symbolic AI tools with legal knowledge interpretation to offer to the legal experts.