The purpose of this article is to identify the key characteristics of the “European model of network industry regulation”, as it has gradually emerged over the past 20 years in the infrastructure sectors. With Giandomenico Majone (1990, 1996), we make the case that such a model exists, but we go further than Majone by taking explicitly into account the technical systems concerned by the liberalization and regulation of network industries. Thus, the model covers both the functions of regulation (i.e., the different aspects that are being regulated – e.g., competition, market creation, technical aspects, political aspects) and the institutions of regulation (generally an independent regulatory agency). It is argued that this emerging European model is the result of the co-evolution between the technical systems on the one hand and their institutional governance on the other.