Capacidad administrativa e implementación de la política de cohesión de la UE.

The success of EU cohesion policy, as it happens more generally with the public policies that are made at the EU level, is dependent on the administrative capacity of the public organizations with implementing powers within each Member State, including the regional and local tiers. The necessity to develop these skills in different territories and sectors, to guarantee the execution of the investments assigned, has required the European Commission, in cooperation with the OECD in some initiatives, to provide diverse tools for national Administrations to help them to strengthen these skills. This contribution reviews the conceptual literature on policy capacity, and it clarifies the definition of administrative capacity. Furthermore, it examines various empirical papers that deal with the link between administrative capacity and the absorption of EU funds, along with the main projects for administrative capacity development that have been conducted by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]