Towards an EU Regulatory Framework for an Effective Single Market

Abstract

There are many good reasons for taking burdensome legislative action. Serious risk to life, security and defence issues require absolute certainty. Classic rules help to provide consistency, in that everyone has to abide by similar rules and organisations cannot choose to opt in or out. Furthermore, they come with clear legal means of redress if the law is broken. This is one of the main reasons why so-called ‘alternative policy instruments’ are often disregarded. Snyder (1995) describes them as ‘rules of conduct which in principle have no legally binding force, but which nevertheless may have practical effect’. They lack the aspect of legal certainty, which has led to the little flattering categorization of ‘soft law’.