I think you are reading into what the spec says, rather than the spec specifically saying that. Yes it says phantoms will "still be possible", but phantoms will "still be possible" is read locks are acquired.

Also keep in mind that the Hibernate team has 2 members on the JPA EG. So we have a pretty good idea of what the "authors had in mind" because what makes it into the spec is supposed to be discussed amongst the EG members. And the exact type of lock to propagate was not discussed.

Anyway, if that passage is the basis of classifying this report as a bug I believe this actually needs to be a feature request instead. I am not against it, but its just a lower priority.