In a posteriori error analysis of reduced basis approximations to affinely parametrized partial differential equations, the construction of lower bounds for the coercivity and inf-sup stability constants is essential. In [Huynh et al., C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Ser. I Math.345 (2007) 473–478], the authors presented an efficient method, compatible with an off-line/on-line strategy, where the on-line computation is reduced to minimizing a linear functional under a few linear constraints. These constraints...