The panel looks at the way in which traditional NGOs and social movements have come to share the political space of the European Union, and the impact of their different pathways upon each other as well as for EU democratisation.

Bouza Garcia, and Greenwood, each use the focus of the new European Citizens’ Initiative to examine wider issues.  Bouza Garcia examines whether the ECI is a gate for a new constituency of organisations introducing more controversial issues into the policy-making process.  Greenwood looks at the ways in which a traditional group of NGOs which have previously sought a ‘civil dialogue’ between themselves and EU institutions are adapting to the challenges to their status from public facing organisations newly mobilised by the European Citizens’ Initiatlve (ECI).  Sanchez Salgado argues that the ¨Brussels consultation consensus¨ shapes the strategies of social movements and protest groups in an indirect way, using data from the European Social Forum and other protest activities with a clear European dimension.  Hadden notes the differentiation among groups which come to engage in European-level collective action on climate change, and attributes the contrasting repertoire of actions they bring with them to different developmental pathways.   The more contentious traditions of groups mobilised at global level means when applied to EU politics questions whether efforts to increase participation of civil society groups in policy-making will reduce the democratic deficit.