The comprehensive budgetary effort that has become inevitable pushes us more than ever to make strategic choices with respect to our social policy. It’s not only about where savings ought to be made, but also about the way our economy will look like once this economic and budgetary crisis will be over. In this essay for the Centre Herman Deleeck, former Minister Frank Vandenbroucke discusses the policy strategy of the ‘new social risks’ and the strategy of the ‘social investment state’: what choices did our government make and what lessons are there to learn? The budgetary efforts to come are also widely examined and FVDB concludes by presenting some of the most important strategic choices for social policy.