It is with great pleasure that I address the readers of the EStIF Journal some weeks after the regulations outlining the legal framework of the EU cohesion policy for 2014-2020 entered into force following more than one year of inter-institutional negotiations and considerable pre-legislative works. The decision-making process involved the Council and the European Parliament as equal partners, applying the ordinary legislative procedure (i.e. co-decision), being the first time after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty that the Parliament acted as a fully-fledged co-legislator on the entire package of cohesion policy with all challenges and difficulties of a new process.