The overview of the milestones of the 4th RP is shown below:

4th Railway Package	Entry into force*	Transposition**
Political Pillar
DIR (EU) 2016/2370 ‘Governance‘	24/12/2016	25/12/2018
REG (EU) 2016/2338 ‘PSO’	24/12/2017	-
Technical pillar
DIR 2016/797 ‘Interoperability’	15/06/2016	16/06/2019
DIR 2016/798 ‘Safety’	15/06/2016	16/06/2019
REG (EU) 2016/796 ‘ERA’	15/06/2016	-

 

*Entry into force: Legal texts need to be published. After the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, a text enters into force.;

**Transposition: Member States are given a certain period to transpose EU legislation into national law. The timeframe depends on the type of the legal initiative. In the case of a Directive, Member States normally have 2 years from the date of the entry into force. For the case of Directives 2016/797 and 2016/798 the transposition period ends after three years on the 16th June 2019. However, some Member States took the option to postpone the transposition by 1 year.

Note on Switzerland: VA and SSC delivered by the Agency will be recognized from 16^th of June 2019 but the full transposition of the directives will take place later on.

In the case of a Regulation, there is no transposition period as this type of legislation applies immediately to EU countries' national law when they entered into force (see point 1 above).

In the case of very complex legislation, such as the 4th Railway Package, the EU foresees various initiatives to help the Member States preparing the transposition. During this so-called “implementation phase”, the EU launches e.g. shadow running processes, pilot schemes, etc. This Guide addresses exactly this phase.