Christoph Görisch seeks to define the democratic requirements in the process of establishing European administrative agencies. In doing so, he looks at evaluative comparative law and provides a critical analysis of the case law of the European Court of Justice.

The European administrative agencies (i.e. the European Trademarks Registration Office) play an important role in the discussion about the "democratic deficit" in the European Union. Difficulties result from a lack of special provisions for the agencies in the founding treaties complementing the Union's general commitment to the principle of democracy according to Article 6 EU. Christoph Görisch seeks to clearly define the respective democratic requirements by looking at evaluative comparative law and providing a critical analysis of the case law of the European Court of Justice. The conclusions are also of particular relevance for the current proposals of the European Commission to establish new regulation agencies in the telecommunications and energy sector.