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Recommendations and opinions
“Recommendations and opinions shall have no binding force.” (Arti-
cle 288)

They are a Þnal category of legal measures explicitly provided for in the
Treaties. They differ from regulations, directives and decisions, in that
they are not binding for Member States. Therefore they belong to the EU
“Soft law”. However, these instruments are very important, as although
without legal force, they do have a political and moral weight. The rec-
ommendation is an instrument of indirect action aimed at preparation of
legislation in the EU Member States, differing from the directives only
by the absence of obligatory power. Recommendation and opinions are
not binding and do not place any legal obligation on Member States but
should be checked alongside with binding legal acts.

The signiÞcance of recommendations and the necessity to take them into
account has been emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice. The
Court has qualiÞed them as “measures which, even as regards the per-
sons to whom they are addressed, are not intended to produce binding
effects”. Consequently, the Court has held that “they cannot create rights
upon which individuals may rely before a national court”. However, the
Court also stressed that “the measures in question cannot therefore be
regarded as having no legal effect. The national courts are bound to take
recommendations into consideration in order to decide disputes submit-
ted to them, in particular where they cast light on the interpretation of
national measures adopted in order to implement them or where they are
designed to supplement binding Community provisions”. 35

Other legal acts in the framework of the Common Foreign and Securi-
ty Policy and in the area of police and judicial co-operation in criminal
justice matters

The Lisbon Treaty introduced certain changes regarding the legal instru-
ments that are used when implementing the common foreign and secu-
rity policy. In Article 24 TEU it is clearly prescribed that the common
foreign and security policy is subject to speciÞc rules and procedures.

35 Salvatore Grimaldi v Fonds des maladies professionnelles (Case C-322/88) [1989]
ECR 4407.

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