Beyond delegation: transnational regulatory regimes and the EU regulatory state

This article investigates the allocation of regulatory authority in the EU. By introducing the concept of a 'regulatory regime it criticizes not only earlier accounts of the EU 'regulatory state', but also current delegation approach's. As a starting point, it identifies a dilemma for the EU regulatory policy. Despite the rising need for uniform EU-level rules in the internal market, the bulk of formal powers and the institutional focus of regulator), activities continue to be located at the national level. This results in a supranational regulatory gap. Our thesis is that this gap is partly filled by transnational regulatory, networks. Under certain conditions, regulatory networks offer a back road to he informal Europeanization of government regulation. However, the informalization of governance is vulnerable to strong distributive conflict, and, if effective, it raises unresolved problems of democratic legitimacy.