The new EU Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, participated in the Travel Protection Summit 2025, organized by the Pan-European Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators (ECTAA) on Wednesday, 19 February 2025, with a video message.

The first Commissioner for Tourism in the history of the European Union highlighted, among other things, the fact that the resilience and competitiveness of the EU travel and tourism sector must be combined with improved protection for passengers and travelers.

He noted in his speech the importance of protection for travel agencies, which are facing an increasingly dynamic market, where changes can occur at any time, without warning and for various reasons, as the pandemic amply showed.

The balanced development of the travel agency sector with stronger safeguards for both businesses and consumers is essential, and this is the goal that the legislative framework being prepared will seek to achieve, with the Commissioner requesting the active contribution of the travel agency sector to develop the framework.

In the context of the ECTAA Travel Protection Summit 2025, the Secretary General of ECTAA, Eric Dresin, and the Vice President of HATTA and member of the ECTAA Board of Directors, Marios Kammenos, who represented HATTA at the Summit, met with MEPs Eliza Vozemberg and Elena Kountoura, in their offices at the European Parliament.

The focus of the meetings, which were held in an excellent atmosphere, was the fact that Greece will play an important role in developments concerning tourism in the coming years, given that the Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism is Greek, that Ms. Vozemberg chairs the Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN), of which Ms. Kountoura is Vice-Chair, and that Greece also participates in the Tourism Task Force (TTF), of which Ms. Vozemberg is a member of the Steering Group.

The representatives of the tourism agencies informed the representatives of our country in the European Parliament about the positions of the sector regarding legislation currently in progress in the European Union, and specifically regarding the legislation concerning Passenger Rights and the Package Travel Directive. It was agreed that there will be a further meeting in the coming days with the staffs of both MEPs, for more detailed cooperation on legislative issues.