The European Union cohesion policy was one of the most serious arguments advocating for Poland’s membership in that organization. This was not because Poland could participate in inner decisive processes but because together with this came the EU funds. At that time, however, Poland could not count on as vast funding stream as it is nowadays. Yet, there is a question to be asked: how did Poland cope with effective use of the entitled allocation? How was the country prepared to fulfill this task in legal-administrative terms? The article below will try to answer these questions.