A discussion on the pace of social policy integration alongside market integration cannot proceed without the initial recognition of the considerable consensus that seems to reign in the field: the diversity of models, ambitions and ways of imagining social policy in the European Union (EU) makes it difficult to speak of an integrated social dimension. Common economic goals as the catalyst of European integration was the core of the design of the founding fathers' model of the EU, and with the remaining superiority of economic policy today, the emergence of a “European welfare state” appears unlikely. However, less one-sidedness exists on the matter when viewed in the light of recent and coming developments, the intellectual logic of separating one aspect of integration from the other, and the consequences of EU enlargement. In a 'social Europe' founded on the duality of economic growth and social rights, and the principle of becoming “ever closer”, we are perhaps entering a new era.