This panel is based on the assumption that EU norms can be placed on a continuum made of soft and hard law. Sometimes norms evolve on this continuum. This movement is called legalization when they become harder, and de-legalization when they become softer. In any political system, understanding what triggers such transformations helps to better understand the nature of law, or more generally of norms, and their place in society. As far as the EU is concerned, at a time where disintegration seems to compete with integration processes, understanding the transformation of law is nothing but crucial.

Since the 1990s, the EU seems to rely more and more on soft law. Soft norms have been created in new areas of competence working under the open method of coordination, or mostly based on strategies and guidelines. In other policy areas working under the traditional community method, hard norms have sometimes been softened by the introduction of imprecise rules and non binding general objectives. This challenges the traditional leading role of (hard) law in the process of European integration. However, soft norms are sometimes only temporary: actors at both EU and national levels can decide to transform them into proper hard law.

The four papers presented in this panel questions the centrality of hard law in the European integration process. More specifically, they identify through several case studies different forms of legalization and delegalization, so as to explain why actors sometimes choose more integration while opting for less integration at other moments.