Soft Law Instruments of The European Union in Shaping Internal Security

The European Union exercises its authority by enacting secondary law, which together with
the founding treaties or primary law serve as the foundations the EU legal system. In addition
to legislative acts, soft law norms or instruments like strategies, action plans, agendas,
conclusions, resolutions, and guidelines aid in the formulation of some EU policies. The
instruments adopted by the EU institutions are the focus of the research, which demonstrates
how soft law norms can shape a very sensitive area like internal security, which is an essential
component of one of the main goals of the Union, which is to create and provide citizens with
a common area of freedom, security, and justice. More specifically, this paper analyzes several
important soft law instruments adopted by the EU institutions for the area that represents the
heart of the member states' national sovereignty. It will be shown that EU soft law instruments
have a significant impact on shaping the internal security of the Union, as a support and
incentive for the application of hard law acts, even though the former do not have full legal
effect and legal obligation. This also have implications for maintaining the internal security of
member states that are not highly enthusiastic about any EU intervention in this area