Can European Union (EU) Social NGOs Co-operate to Promote EU Social Policy? ROBERT GEYER* ABSTRACT This article examines why, despite similar general interests, institutional positions and political constraints, EU social NGOs find it so difficult to develop co-operative strategies except on the most fundamental issues. To demonstrate these difficulties the article considers the general reasons for and against co-operation between social NGOs and then examines the difficulties and advantages of collective EU social NGO action during the 1998 NGO funding crisis, Red Card protest and civil dialogue. The article argues that there is a fundamental desire for, and are benefits from, close co-operation between the EU social NGOs. However, due to the complex ‘context structure’ within which NGOs must operate, this co-operative impetus is constantly undermined. In conclusion, the article argues that social NGOs will remain weak and insignificant actors until the Commission/Parliament and/or the social NGOs can organise the complex context structure and allow co-operative strategies to emerge. The fate of the European social model has been a central question of the 1980s and 1990s. Debates have raged over its definition, content and ability to defend itself against the pressures of economic globalisation and European integration (Hay, 1998; Hay and Marsh, 2000). A central aspect of this debate has been the development and potential role of EU social policy. An early assumption of defenders of the European social model was that a stronger EU social policy could act as a bulwark against international and European deregulatory and market-oriented forces (Martin, 1989). Built into this assumption was the hope that EU social policy could and should be promoted by a strong and extensive array of European level social non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Often labelled the ‘civil dialogue’, these social NGOs were supposed to form the political and institutional backbone of a social policy network which would help to maintain the ‘human face’ of the EU and by implication defend the fundamental European social model. Jnl Soc. Pol., 30, 3, 477–493 Printed in the United Kingdom 477 © 2001 Cambridge University Press *Lecturer, School of Politics and Communications, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZT.