Asymmetric National Enforcement Structures for EU Digital Rules: Can Cross-border and Cross-sector Cooperation Work?

The proliferation of EU regulations in the digital field has required Member States to continuously adapt their enforcement structures, resulting in an increasingly layered institutional landscape. As the number of EU regulations on the digital sector has grown, Member States have repeatedly faced the choice of assigning enforcement competences to national bodies. In line with the principle of procedural autonomy, they have generally enjoyed broad discretion to either designate existing authorities or create new ones. Moreover, when assigning competences to existing authorities, Member States typically decide autonomously which type of authorities is best suited to exercise them. This contribution shows, however, that this flexibility has generated considerable divergence in institutional arrangements across the Union, which can complicate coordination in transnational cases.