Cohesion policy has become the key EU policy based on its share in the EU budget. This policy is supposed to help the EU regions to develop and thus increase socio-economic cohesion among them. Yet, given the recent EU crises and still uncertain willingness of all its Member States to continue the common project, there is a question whether it should also support increasing citizens’ identification with the EU. The paper is based on the case studies conducted in two Polish regions within PERCEIVE, a Horizon 2020 project, and aims at presenting challenges of cohesion policy in Poland. The results show that Polish case study regions, despite the differences in the level of their socio-economic development, face the same challenges to the cohesion policy. Moreover, these challenges are a clear set of policy recommendation for the reform of the cohesion policy and they all concentrate around trust, both among citizens, between citizens and authorities, and among different levels of administration and political power.