The powers of national regulatory authorities as agents of EU law

Over the past few decades, National Regulatory Authorities have acquired a central role in the implementation of EU law. NRAs are established by the Member States, implying that they are part of the national administrative organisation chart. Their creation, however, is compulsory under EU law. Today’s NRAs derive most of their competences from EU legislation, even if the formal legal basis of their tasks and powers is typically the national legislation that implements the EU directives. Focusing on NRAs in the field of network regulation, which are characterised by the far-reaching requirements of (political) independence that EU law imposes, this paper maps this trend of ‘empowering’ NRAs and some of the challenges on the level of accountability that go hand in hand with it. © 2017, ERA.