Abstract. The European social model is characterized by a high heterogeneity degree, the member countries recording significant differences between the national redistribution systems. According to the existing gaps regarding the decreases of the poverty, the participation to the labour market and the protection against the labour market risks, we can identify five submodels within EU, the Northern one being the best adjusted to the structure of the European social model which has been modernized through the Lisbon strategy. Even though the finality of EU is represented by providing the social cohesion (the decrease of the poverty rate and of the income inequality), the progresses recorded during the period between 2000 and 2008 were quite low due to the evolutions of the Southern, Anglo-Saxon, Baltic and Romanian submodels. Within this study, we have explained why the increase of the state’s resources, of the welfare does not constitute a necessary and sufficient condition for the consolidation of the social cohesion within the European Union. On the contrary, the increase of the redistributed financial resources is able to generate sustainability problems in the budget deficit when the economic activity goes through an economic recession period.

Keywords: convergence, integration, european model, fiscal sustainability.