Traps of multi-level governance. Lessons from the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Italy

Different patterns of multi-level governance (MLG) have increasingly spread across Europe as a consequence of Europeanisation of public policies, aiming to encourage decentralised and participatory procedures conceived as a tool of more effective and accountable policy-making. It appears, however, that the implementation of multi-level policy designs may be rather problematic and does not necessarily lead to the expected performance improvements. Analysing the case of the EU Water Framework Directive, which promotes the creation of particular multi-level governance settings as a means of enacting a new holistic approach to water policies, this article explores the implementation difficulties that the Directive has encountered in Italy, despite some favourable pre-conditions existing in the country. Against such a backdrop, the study draws attention to a number of dimensions which should be further reflected upon in order to improve our understanding of implementation failures of MLG designs in the perspective of the process of Europeanisation.