TY - JOUR
T1 - Killing me Softly? Scrutinising the Role of Soft Law in Greece’s Response to COVID-19
AU - Tsourdi, Evangelia (Lilian)
AU - Vavoula, Niovi
N1 - Funding Information:
*Assistant Professor and Dutch Research Council (NWO) grantee, University of Maastricht, Faculty of Law and Maastricht Centre for European Law, Maastricht, The Netherlands; email: e.tsourdi@maastrichtuniversity.nl. This work was supported by a VENI programme grant (project No VI.Veni.191R.040), which is financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). **Lecturer in Migration and Security, Queen Mary University of London, School of Law, London, UK. This work was undertaken in the framework of the Jean Monnet Network on “Migration and Asylum Policies Systems” (MAPS).
Publisher Copyright:
©
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - Greece emerged as the EU's poster child in the fight against COVID-19 during the first few months of the pandemic. In this contribution, we assess Greece's use of soft regulation in its regulatory response to COVID-19. Using "acts of legislative content", which can be broadly conceptualised as softly adopted hard law, the Greek government largely achieved flexibility and simplified adoption procedures without having to resort to soft law per se. The role of soft law was limited - it complemented hard law rather than constituting the primary basis of COVID-19 restrictions - but not completely negligible. Soft law instruments regulated the processing of personal data, and was also pivotal in clarifying the criminal sanctioning of COVID-related rule violations. Greece's success in handling the first wave of the pandemic, while effective, was arguably unfair to asylum seekers who saw their right to apply for asylum curtailed, and their right to freedom of movement restricted when limitations on the rest of the population were lifted. With a second wave of infections currently in full swing, it is imperative to keep scrutinising regulatory responses to ensure that they place the health and dignity of every individual (whoever they might be) at their core and fully respect their fundamental rights.
AB - Greece emerged as the EU's poster child in the fight against COVID-19 during the first few months of the pandemic. In this contribution, we assess Greece's use of soft regulation in its regulatory response to COVID-19. Using "acts of legislative content", which can be broadly conceptualised as softly adopted hard law, the Greek government largely achieved flexibility and simplified adoption procedures without having to resort to soft law per se. The role of soft law was limited - it complemented hard law rather than constituting the primary basis of COVID-19 restrictions - but not completely negligible. Soft law instruments regulated the processing of personal data, and was also pivotal in clarifying the criminal sanctioning of COVID-related rule violations. Greece's success in handling the first wave of the pandemic, while effective, was arguably unfair to asylum seekers who saw their right to apply for asylum curtailed, and their right to freedom of movement restricted when limitations on the rest of the population were lifted. With a second wave of infections currently in full swing, it is imperative to keep scrutinising regulatory responses to ensure that they place the health and dignity of every individual (whoever they might be) at their core and fully respect their fundamental rights.
KW - ASYLUM
KW - EU
U2 - 10.1017/err.2020.114
DO - 10.1017/err.2020.114
M3 - Article
C2 - 34191954
SN - 1867-299X
VL - 12
SP - 59
EP - 76
JO - European Journal of Risk Regulation
JF - European Journal of Risk Regulation
IS - 1
ER -