Civil society in an integrating Europe

This chapter discusses a reconstructive strategy that seeks to give an overview about both the origin and development of the so-called 'European civil society' and the changing language that has been used to conceptualize these non-state actors. The initial Treaty of Rome of the six founding members of the European Economic Community (EEC) largely foresaw European integration as an economic project. In the 1980s economic integration accelerated with the formulation of the internal market in the Single European Act and the goal of a common market programme with a single currency was formulated. Since the mid-1990s the phrases 'civil society' and the 'participation of civil society organizations' in governance processes pushed other terminologies aside. The chapter concludes by arguing that developments suggest a move away from the civil society language and a return to the older language of interest representation, a development that will certainly be normatively less exciting, but perhaps ideologically less exaggerated.