Soft Law Implementation in the EU Multilevel System

One way of coping with increasingly complex issues in EU policy-making is to use soft law. Soft law instruments such as recommendations, guidelines or communications do not entail jurisdictional control, but produce important legal and practical effects. Yet, we still know relatively little when and why EU soft law is implemented at domestic level. Does the implementation of EU soft law as an increasingly relevant part of EU multilevel governance differ from hard law in terms of the actors and mechanisms? Does soft law produce soft effects or can we observe a hardening out across the different levels of the EU system? The paper formulates two distinct expectations on the implementing EU soft law. From a legalistic logic soft law is part of a hierarchy of norms. Its usage should be limited to Courts and bureaucracy and to instances of qualification and clarification of hard law that continue to distinguish between hard and soft law. From an effectiveness logic soft law may serve politicians and citizens in solving problems. We can expect that a wider range of actors beyond the political arena draws on soft-law, at times leading to a hardening out. On the basis of case study evidence from a broader project the chapter compares implementation of EU soft law instruments in the area of financial market regulation, social and environmental policy to understand conditions of hardening out. Describing processes and outcomes the chapter systematically sheds light on the above raised questions to contribute to a better understanding of governance in the EU multilevel system.