Meso-level conceptualizations of EU and Russian influence in their shared neighbourhood have been developed within their respective research fields. Focusing on economic, cultural, normative, and military influence they overemphasize the difference of these two actors. This has led to a dichotomous view of what kind of actors the EU and Russia are and how they exert influence over neighbouring countries. This paper conceptualizes the two actors as regional hegemons developing an ideal-typical mechanism of hegemonic power through the prescription of norms and rules. With the aim of understanding uses of prescription by the EU and Russia, uses of this mechanism in international food safety and transport regimes with one EU associated country (Moldova) and one Eurasian Economic Union member state (Armenia) are compared. The comparison shows the similarities and differences of EU and Russian regulatory power in the shared neighbourhood. On the on hand, both regional powers use this mechanism in their competition for hegemonic power in the region. On the other, EU food safety and transport regimes are more stringent with higher standards incurring higher costs on Moldovan actors that comply with them. Unified EAEU sectoral regimes are still in the making and not as far reaching as the EU ones and thus less constraining for Armenian actors. However, the analysis also shows that the differences in EU and EAEU food safety and transport regimes are not irreconcilable and thus the competition between two regional hegemons in their shared neighbourhood does not result in competing sectoral regimes.