33

The Europeanization of collective action highlights the emergence of grassroots mobilization around the European Union. The organizations that are increasingly involved on a community level notably include public interest groups. In this paper, the European structuring of civil society is analyzed from the point of view of two competing networks which aim to be its official mouthpiece: Citizens for Europe (CEDAG) and the European Citizens? Action Service (ECAS). Through the strategies followed by these two organizations, which are essentially focused on the generation of expertise, two visions of the relations between associations and governments in the EU are in fact being produced, with that of the CEDAG being closer to the neo-corporatist paradigm of mediation of social interests and that of the ECAS being more in accordance with the pluralist paradigm.