Governance of network industries: towards European regulators, differentiated regulations, or self-regulation?

This paper explores three different scenarios of how the regulatory governance of the network industries in Europe is likely to evolve, namely the emergence of European regulators, differentiated and therefore more fragmented regulation and self-regulation. This evolution it is argued, is made necessary by the fact that the current model regulatory governance of the network industries is not stable, both because the institutions and the technology are still (co-)evolving and because the currently prevailing model of independent, sector-specific national regulatory authorities is being challenged by the dynamics of the network industries, the involved firms, and most importantly by the challenges raised by deregulation be it in economic (competition is still not he norm), in political (problems with the provision of the services of general interest), and especially in technical terms (problems of interoperability, interconnection, capacity management, and system management). In its conclusion the paper confronts these three possible scenarios with the current literature on multi-level governance and concludes that future modes of regulatory governance in Europe can be identified as challenges of multi-level governance.