Regulatory scrutiny of subsidiarity and proportionality

As the monitoring of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality is mostly left up to the EU institutions, internal quality control bodies could play an important role in developing tests and standards which represent part of ‘subsidiarity and proportionality in action’. In this context, the Impact Assessment Board (Board), established within the European Commission in 2006 and recently renamed ‘Regulatory Scrutiny Board’ (to review impact assessments) holds a key position. This paper presents an analysis of opinions from the Board from 2010 and 2011 as an alternative jurisprudential source regarding subsidiarity and proportionality. The analysis tells us something about the ‘everyday meaning’ of these principles, but also about the way the Board functions as an ‘in-house’ regulatory review board.