Britain in Europe (BiE), the UK's most prominent pro-European pressure group, is to re-invent itself "as a pro-business campaigning body that will push for change in areas such liberalisation of the services sector and better regulation".
The move, signalled in a letter to the Financial Times today from a group of business leaders - including Sir Martin Sorrell, head of WPP, Europe's biggest advertising group, and Chris Gibson-Smith, chairman of the London Stock Exchange - comes when the European debate in the UK is taking on greater impetus with Prime Minister Tony Blair holding the presidency of the EU at a time when the 25-nation bloc is in crisis.
"The European Union needs to focus on completion of the single market, resurrection of the services directive and the goals of the Lisbon Agenda," the letter says.
The new body will seek to win the support, particularly in the business community, of people who may have been sceptical on specific issues such as the EU's constitutional treaty and the single currency but are broadly in favour the EU as a whole.
BiE was originally formed to promote membership of the euro. When that was shelved by London it changed focus to campaigning for a "Yes" vote in any UK referendum on the EU constitution only to see that goal evaporate after the French and Dutch "No" votes.
"The landscape certainly has changed," said Alasdair Murray, deputy director the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank.
He said that, since 1997 when Mr Blair took office promising to put Britain at the heart of Europe, the debate "has been geared towards a a big ding-dong battle, first over the single currency, then over the constitution... that has now gone".
Mr Murray foresees the debate in Britain returning to where it was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the majority of opinion was broadly in favour of the EU and before it took on a divisive and sometimes aggressive character.
But he cautioned that, while change was under way, it was still "very early days".
BiE director Lucy Powell said there was "an emerging new agenda" in Europe. She believed there was a need for a campaigning body to build a consensus around a programme for reform.
Pro-Europeans hope a consensus could form on issues of support for budget reform, better regulation, enlargement of the 25-nation bloc and flexibility that would allow groups of member states to choose at what pace they want to proceed with further integration.
