ABSTRACT
The paper aims to examine the political performance and governance capacity at EU level. The study is conducted using data from Sustainable Governance Indicators Database (SGI). Statistical methods based on composing aggregate indices are proposed using 21 indicators grouped in 11 dimensions, and countries are classified according to the performance obtained by the cluster method. The principal component analysis revealed six main factors: “PCT Patent Applications,” “Life expectancy,” “Old age dependency ratio,” “Tax system complexity,” “Inflation,” and “Fertility rate.” After calculating the final value of the index of political performance and governance capacity, we have identified three main groups of countries, as follows: Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Germany, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, and the Netherlands with high political and governance performance, countries with an increasing trend (Estonia, Croatia, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom), and countries with poor performance (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary). Romania ranks last in terms of political performance and governance capacity. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.