The Role of Soft Law in The Development, Implementation and Enforcement of EU Competition Law: A Comparative Analysis

The body of European Union competition law occupies a crucial place within the EU legal order. It is responsible for promoting and safeguarding the European internal market and ensures fair competition between corporations. Competition law is gradually developing and adapting to modern specifics and needs of the European market. On the one hand, one can see this process as a smooth evolution of legal theories, rules of conduct for companies and competition authorities. However, it has to be emphasised that changes of EU competition rules require a highly complicated interplay between various stakeholders in this field, such as the European Commission, EU courts and national competition authorities. One of the practices which acquired a vital role in this process is soft law enacted by the Commission. Being previously seen as a non-binding legal instrument, soft law created a great interest among legal scholars regarding the extent of its influence on the EU competition law sector. This paper will conduct a comparative analysis of various EU competition law actors regarding the application of the Commission’s soft law. Notably, it will target approaches used by the Court of Justice of the European Union and Commission, on the one hand, and the national competition authorities and national courts of the Member States, on the other. Accordingly, it will provide the reader with valuable insight into the role of non-binding rules in the harmonisation of EU competition law.