EU obligations regarding the establishment of autonomous public bodies are inspired by considerations of credibility. One of the concerns is that politicians sometimes lack the necessary expertise in technical matters and a body with a professionalized staff is preferred. For this reason and others, the EU legislature increasingly requires the creation of national administrative bodies with complete political independence, excluding all forms of political supervision. Only recently, the independence requirements for regulators in the sectors of energy, electronic communications and railway transport were amplified. The paper will argue that that complete political insulation of regulatory bodies is neither justified, neither required for expertise to thrive. Expertise as well as politics are necessary to make regulatory decision-making legitimate and models for reconciling them can be conceived. This thesis will be substantiated with a proposal for a balanced form of political supervision, which will be underpinned by both theoretical and empirical arguments.
