Privatisation/deregulation of railways
Description:
One key aspect of deregulation aims to promote the use of (comparatively environmentally friendly) railway transport and improve the attractiveness and competitiveness of railway transportation. Furthermore, deregulation aims to improve railway transportation service quality via liberalisation of national and intra-EU cross border rail transport markets, increasing the share of rail transport, reducing financial burdens/state contributions, and enhancing the integration of Europe-wide railway system management and operations;
The liberalisation of national markets in the EU for freight and passenger railway transport has been widely supported by EU legislation since 2007 (by Directive 91/440/EEC57 on the development of the Community's railways). The opening of the Europe-wide railway market encourages greater competition for different railway companies in order to strengthen service quality. The international rail freight market within the EU has been deregulated since 2007. However, fundamental differences remain regarding the openness of European markets e.g. between Germany (Rail liberalisation Index (LIB) Index of 842 out of 1,000) compared to Spain (LIB Index 583), as illustrated by the figure below.