The Commission has decided to pursue infringement proceedings against the 13 EU countries that have failed to notify the Commission of the transposition of two key directives of the second railway package into domestic legislation. These two directives aim at ensuring high levels of safety and interoperability for rail business across Europe. The Commission is determined to ensure a 'level playing field' for rail across the single market.

The second railway package had to be transposed into national legislation before 30 April 2006. The 13 countries failing to notify the Commission of their transposition of the two directives (2004/49 and 2004/50) are Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Slovenia and the Slovak Republic.

If any of these Member States fails to respond to the Commission's reasoned opinion (by notifying its transposition measures) within a two-month deadline, the Commission may decide to take the case before the European Court of Justice.

Directive 2004/49/EC on railway safety aims at introducing a market in track acess charges in relation to safety procedures. It lays down a procedure amending Council Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings and Directive 2001/14/EC (Railway Safety Directive) for granting safety certificates on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification every railway company must obtain before it can run trains on the European network.

Directive 2004/50/EC amending Council Directive 96/48/EC on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system and Directive 2001/16/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system, which is needed in order to operate cross-border services and cut rolling stock costs on the high-speed network by introducing flexible cross-border working for train crews.