However, there is another, wider concept of proportionality that we should consider: that is, proportionality in the sense, not merely of a technical standard of administrative law, but of a broad constitutional ideal, which should guide all official actions in the Union.
This wider notion, which is more congenial to the thinking of economists like me, is explicitly entrenched in the text of the Treaty on European Union. Indeed, article 5 of the Treaty states clearly that “[t]he use of Union competences is governed by the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality”.