In September 2010, the process of merging the directives into a single piece of legislation was begun, with the addition of modifications to strengthen the regulatory framework.
In many countries in Europe, the railway systems developed as separate privately owned companies operating regional networks, such as in the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, or Germany.
As a consequence of this new trans-national freight network an additional change was made to the original legislation which required train safety and operating standards[note 5] to be set out clearly and administered by an organisation that did not run commercial services.
There has also been a large increase in the number of private freight providers, many relatively small such as Rail4chem and ERS Railways, but the national companies still control the majority of the traffic.
[14][15] A subsidiary of the British company DB Schenker Rail (UK), EuroCargoRail, operates trains in France and Spain, a situation unlikely prior to the liberalisation.
In the UK, the directives have been criticised in some areas[16] partly based on the problems with the full privatisation of British Rail, additionally the regulations favour competitive practice which are not necessarily compatible with workers rights.
By 2004, some countries such as the United Kingdom had gone far beyond the original remit privatising the railway system on Great Britain (but not Northern Ireland), others such as Finland and France had created fully separate infrastructure and railway companies from the state-run enterprises; still others, such as Germany, had created separate subsidiaries for different service providers and subsidiaries for infrastructure and track (DB Netz).
The countries not having fully implemented the legislation to the commission's satisfaction were Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.
[22] In February 2013 the European Court of Justice ruled that the governments of Hungary and Spain had failed to liberalise their railways; infrastructure management was not sufficiently separated from train operation.