We study if the multilevel algorithm introduced by Debussche, T. Dubois and R. Temam [Theoret. Comput. Fluid Dynam. 7 (1995), no. 4, 279-315; Zbl 838.76060] and Dubois, F. Jauberteau and Temam [J. Sci. Comput. 8 (1993), no. 2, 167-194; MR1242960 (94f:65098)] for the 2D Navier-Stokes equations with periodic boundary conditions and spectral discretization can be generalized to more general boundary conditions and to finite elements. We first show that a direct generalization, as in [C. Calgaro, J. Laminie and R. Temam, Appl. Numer. Math. 23 (1997), no. 4, 403-442; MR1453424 (98d:76124)], for the Burgers equation, would not be very efficient. We then propose a new approach where the domain of integration is decomposed into subdomains. This enables us to define localized small-scale components and we show that, in this context, there is a good separation of scales. We conclude that all the ingredients necessary for the implementation of the multilevel algorithm are present.