Drafting EU soft law instruments as persuasive governance tools

The main aim of this chapter is to identify, define and operationalize drafting criteria and guidelines for EU soft law instruments. Despite their common usage and influence in a wide area of policies, and despite a core preoccupation with the quality of EU legal acts in general, most prominently in the context of the ‘better lawmaking’ initiatives, the drafting of these instruments has hardly been a concern for EU drafters. This chapter first highlights the unique attributes of EU soft law instruments as persuasive governance tools. Next, concrete guidelines for a proper drafting of EU soft law instruments are outlined and explained against the background of several argumentative and legal parameters used to assess the persuasive force of these governance tools.