Soft law to protection from COVID-19 : comparative approaches in the national legal regulation of the pandemic by the member states of the European Union

COVID-19 has resulted in the unprecedented closure of borders and the blocking of cities and regions, it has taken millions of lives, created an emergency situation in public health and administrative management. In order to respond to the coronavirus pandemic in a timely manner and apply unified approaches to its «taming», the EU institutions and public authorities of national member states, in addition to the current legislative acts, have widely used such legal regulators of public life and administrative management as soft law. With the use of circulars, instructions, guidelines and other acts of soft law, the rules of behavior of the population and its individual groups in a pandemic began to be urgently introduced, the procedure for vaccination and remote work and education were explained. Acts of soft law, which, according to the theory of law, are not binding, on the one hand, have become an internal guide to the actions of authorities to organize the management of subordinate infrastructure, save the economy, on the other hand, external rules aimed at voluntary compliance with them by residents of cities and settlements (recommendations, appeals, explanations, etc.). Main strategies of the EU member states in the application of soft law measures are aimed at saving human life, supporting the economy, education and healthcare. Flexible, prompt and unified use of hard and soft law on the territory of the EU member states at the beginning of the pandemic – spring-summer 2020, a period of confusion and emergency, allowed to stabilize the situation, invent a vaccine against COVID-19, open borders and transport links, strengthen the capabilities of medicine and education. This article examines the peculiarities of the application of soft law in some EU member states – Italy, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Sweden – at the first most difficult stages of the pandemic. These countries followed different approaches to combating the pandemic, ranging from complete isolation and the introduction of a «state of siege» in Italy and ending with soft recommendations in Sweden. These differences are not only due to the legal and political traditions of these countries, but also to the specific approaches of those states, reflecting the special conditions they faced at the local level.