Theories of deliberation have generated new and diverging interpretations of the EU governance and integration process. When applied to EU institutions, the accuracy of the deliberative norm and the corresponding logic of arguing is deba-table. This paper focuses on the logic of arguing by addressing the topic of “civil dialogue” as promoted by the main European non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Brussels. The paper analyses the coalition building process that revolves around civil dialogue and the corresponding discursive strategies. The three logics identified by Risse, strategic, norm guided, and argumentative, are useful in ana-lysing how different NGOs have cooperated since the early 2000s. The challenges raised by civil dialogue in terms of shared meanings and acceptable reasons have led the most active NGOs to promote the logic of arguing within their alliance. The results of the deliberative processes in their two coalitions reflect the intrinsic difficulty in finding both an operational and legitimate definition of civil dialogue
