Financed by the European Commission, the Academic Network of Soft Law Research aims at stimulating the debate between academics and practitioners on the national role of EU soft law. SoLaR asks whether and how non-legally binding EU instruments are used by national administrations when implementing EU policies and by national courts when ruling in cases falling within the scope of application of EU law.

The 5th Solar Workshop focuses on the role of soft law in the field of EU social policy. During the first day, open to the public, the relevance of soft law in the national practice of social policy will be assessed through a presentation of the effect EU soft law instruments took in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia and UK. In particular we analyse three instruments adopted at EU level between 2011 and 2014: Recommendations on investing in children: breaking the cycle of disadvantage (2013/112/EU) and on strengthening the principle of equal pay between men and women through transparency (2014/124/EU) as well as »Buying Social: A Guide to Taking Account of Social Considerations in Public Procurement«. By engaging with a number of distinguished guests from academia and national authorities, the workshop will also examine conceptual questions of EU soft law, as well as the role of soft law in Germany more generally. The second day is reserved to a research meeting involving SoLaR team members and is closed to the public.