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The main purpose of this paper is to warn academia and general public about the inevitability of the impending global economic recession. Heuristically paper introduces concept of macroeconomic gambling trap within the wider context of global economic history. Macroeconomic gambling trap is then applied to the current situation. The underlying cause for the impending crisis is the growth of debt in the West. Primary progenitor of debt problem is the world's largest debtor nation, United States. Since the 1970s and the unilateral destruction of the golden standard US political and military power guarantee status of the dollar as world reserve currency despite absence of its backing in gold. Debt explosion caused alienation of financial sector from the real economy in most western countries. The impending crisis is foreshadowed by a Great Recession (Financial crisis of 2007/2008). The Great Recession was only temporally stopped by means of unorthodox monetary policy -with quantitative easing programs and by keeping interest rates at record low, even negative, levels. However, this will make forthcoming collapse only more severe. After analysis of the influence of gold standard collapse on the outcome of the Cold War the paper utilizes specific economic indicators, such as velocity of money M2 for USD, growth in total debt, CAPE ratio for aggregate US stock market, US labour force participation and index of the Shanghai Stock Exchange to indicate the immediacy and the inevitability of the next global recession.

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The paper explores normative substance of the new Package Travel Directive (2015/2302/EU) and its influence on the Croatian Tourism Law. The new Directive was adopted on 25 November 2015, European Union Member States had to transpose it by 1 January 2018 and it is applicable from 1 July 2018. Internet as increasingly important medium for travel services resulted in surge of various forms of customized travel arrangements and rendered provisions of the old Directive obsolete to the needs modern tourist market. Although 23% of EU travellers still purchase traditional, pre-arranged packages, more and more either buy different parts of their trips separately or buy customized holidays, which are put together by one or more commercially linked traders to suit their needs and preferences. Vast majority of travellers buying packages and linked travel arrangements are consumers within the meaning of the EU Consumer Protection Law. Thus, new Package Travel Directive should result in the enhancement of the consumer protection. New legislation will extend protection of the of the 1990 EU Package Travel Directive to cover not only traditional package holidays, but also give clear protection to 120 million consumers who book other forms of combined travel. Scope of the new Package Travel Directive is substantially wider than the scope of the old Directive. The new Package Travel Directive applies to packages offered for sale or sold by traders to travellers and to linked travel arrangements facilitated by traders for travellers. The new Directive broadens the concept of package and now will apply to different sorts of travel combinations: pre-arranged packages; customised packages and linked travel arrangements. This paper elaborates on normative and substantive influence of the new Directive in Croatian Tourism Law. Following comparative legal overview current Croatian legislation of package travel including applicable sections of the Civil Obligations Act will be inspected.

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