Abstract: Regional convergence has become a heated topic in the last decades. To address it, most papers define regions on the base of normative/administrative criteria, although some consider that it could lead to misleading conclusions. In view of that, this article explores, over the period 1995-2006, the per capita income distribution of two sets of European regions: administrative (NUTS2) and functional (Metropolitan) regions. From a methodological point of view, a distribution dynamics approach - examining the external shape and movements within these distributions - is applied to analyse the issue of convergence. The study does reveal the presence of a process of convergence across both types of regions; however, this seems to be more rapid with Metropolitan than NUTS2 regions, which prompt us to proposing some relative major changes in the EU regional policy.
