Abstract

The article aims to outline analytical and conceptual links existing between the quali-ty of governance and the administrative/institutional capacity by looking at the sys- tem of management and control of the financial flows of EU Structural Funds. Moreover, the present work tries to identify conditions of failure and success of the regulation process in the context of multilevel public policies. The article argues that variation in the effectiveness and efficiency of policy implementation across EU countries cannot be exhaustively explained by institutional variables embedded in the formal procedural and institutional requirements, whereas the performance of key actors involved in such a process should be taken into consideration. To this end the authors propose some criteria, which regard different dimensions of accountability and allow to assess the quality of governance.