The sharing of forwarding states between multiple traffic paths is described. There is described a method for establishing a data traffic path in a communication network from a first node towards a second node. The method includes searching a set of pre-existing forwarding states for a pre-existing forwarding state associated with the first node for defining the traffic path from the first node towards the second node. If the pre-existing forwarding state for defining the traffic path cannot be found in the set of pre-existing forwarding states, then a new forwarding state for defining the traffic path from the first node towards the second node is generated the new forwarding state is used to establish the traffic path from the first node towards the second node. An apparatus implementing the method is described. The sharing of forwarding states as described may be used in MPLS enabled networks.