This article analyses Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs) to investigate how rules-based norms influence managerial rules-avoidant governance techniques. It does this by tracing the limits of performance targeting, benchmarking, and best practices—of New Economic Governance (NEG)—in the European regulatory context. Using IPCEIs as a case study, it investigates how the guidelines and practices that steer the application of the treaty article diverge from the intent of the law, and where the law nevertheless has some lasting impact. It thereby nuances recent contributions on the different lineages of neoliberalism on the one hand, and alternative, managerial governance approaches on the other. It argues that while the lineages between the two may be differ, hard rules nevertheless manage to demarcate what is possible through alternative governance approaches. It finds that the European Commission has managed to construct an important managerial role in the planning and implementation of IPCEIs, but that the projects put inadvertent focus on innovation, which stems from the context in which the current definition of IPCEIs emerged. This suggests that the legal framework atop which the EC manages projects affects what the Union considers productive investments. Put differently, hard rules influence how the EU ‘sees’ the world, which engenders entrepreneurial subjectivity among its subjects.