The establishment of the Danish independent regulatory authorities for the energy and telecommunications sectors was based upon EU directives as part of their liberalisation process. Following the concepts of transaction costs and path dependency this article analyses differences in independence between the two authorities - the Danish Energy Regulatory Authority (Energitilsynet) and the National IT and Telecommunications Agency (IT- og Telestyrelsen) respectively. We find that the state's negligible interest in the energy sector until the 1970s formed the basis for strong energy companies capable of influencing regulation in their interest. This condition made DERA relatively dependent on commercial interests compared to NITA. In contrast, the state had an early interest in controlling and regulating telecommunications services, which meant strong control of the telecommunications companies and a regulation contingent upon political interests that has continued to this day. We therefore suggest that sector-specific institutional processes have caused differences between the regulatory institutions mediating the influence of the EU.