36

Within the framework of the deregulation lauded by Brussels, the liberalization of public transportation concerns all European countries, but can be implemented as each country sees it fit. In Germany, this process is set up following a double intake: economic and environmental. Indeed, the liberalization drive in this sector comes along with a strong social demand in ecology (the Greens entered the federal government since 1998). These two aspirations conjugate at the sensitive moment when the traveler railway system was being reorganized, at the local and regional level in particular.