In the European electricity sector, the delegation of
rule-making has literally reached the next level. Socalled ‘methodologies’,
legally binding rules developed between private electricity companies and
specialized regulatory agencies, constitute a vast and growing body of
‘quaternary law’. The methodologies and their unique features raise numerous
interesting questions for scholars of EU law, but they remain severely
underresearched. This is regrettable, since the methodologies illustrate
another pressing issue related to the delegation of rule-making: the fuzzy
legal boundaries to delegation. These follow from the European Court of
Justice’s (ECJ’s) non-delegation, or Meroni doctrine, which however seems to be
subject to a creeping maceration. As the methodologies show, the resulting
legal uncertainty encourages ever-bolder models of delegation, raising grave
constitutional concerns. At the same time, the methodologies illustrate a need
for delegated rule-making in technical sectors, such as electricity. The
argument of this article is that the ECJ should therefore revise the Meroni
doctrine to restore legal certainty with respect to delegation, while also
respecting the requirements of regulatory reality. This article discusses
possible approaches and proposes a starting point for a ‘Meroni doctrine 2.0ʹ.