Dr Aleksander Jevšek holds a master's degree in law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana and a doctorate in criminalistics. Until 2011, he worked for 30 years in various management positions in the Slovenian Police, the last four years as Director of the Criminal Police Directorate.   From 2012 to 2014, he participated as an expert in a European Commission project to assist Bosnia and Herzegovina in the harmonisation of criminal legislation with EU standards. Since December 2014, he has been Mayor of the Municipality of Murska Sobota. For two terms, he presided over the Association of Municipalities and Towns of Slovenia, which has 179 members. He has been a member of the Slovenian delegation to the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) for seven years and is Deputy Head of the Slovenian delegation. In the CoR, he is a member of the NAT and CIVEX commissions and the JCC for Serbia. He is a member of the U-LEAD working group for Ukraine. During his term as Mayor, the Municipality of Murska Sobota has implemented a number of successful projects under EU funding mechanisms (Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI) for urban development, Community Led Local Development (CLLD), the Agreement for the Development of Regions, and cross-border Interreg projects (Slovenia–Hungary, Slovenia–Croatia and Slovenia–Austria)). He believes that cohesion should work by making a coherent whole out of different parts. This means reducing development gaps and inequalities and creating equal opportunities to enjoy a decent quality of life. Cohesion is not just an opportunity to obtain EU funding, but to use such funds to equalise the development opportunities of regions, municipalities, businesses, communities and, above all, people.