The Third Progress Report on Cohesion (17 May 2005) underlines the “coherence between cohesion policy and the Lisbon strategy”, although it admits that “the degree of congruity appears to be significantly higher in relatively more prosperous regions while it is lower in the less developed regions.” (p. 7,9). The logical conclusion would be to elaborate a special Lisbon assistance programme for the less developed regions and countries. Instead the Third Report states that cohesion policy “is” an instrument for the Lisbon strategy, since they have “overlapping objectives”. The same paradox comes back in the Community Strategic Guidelines, 2007-2013 by saying on one side that there is “synergy” — the most frequently used term in this document — between cohesion and Lisbon. However, the Guidelines end up with the following question to be discussed by the public at large: “To what extent should cohesion policy support the growth and jobs agenda and the Lisbon process?”, which means that the answer is open, since the next question is: “What new elements might be included in order to address this agenda?”