CEF eInvoicing at the European Exchange Summit 2016

The event gathered experts and professionals in the field of electronic Invoicing (eInvoicing), Purchase to Pay, eProcurement, Supply Chain Finance. Participants travelled from across Europe and the Americas to discuss key trends and challenges for the eInvoicing and eProcurement industry and policy developments that influence it.

A range of speakers and participants attended the event on behalf of the European Commission, demonstrating the Commission's commitment to collaborate with the industry as part of the Digital Single Market.

Andrea Servida, from the European Commission's Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CONNECT), presented on the eIDAS Regulation and the Digital Single Market. Thomas Spoormans, from the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), presented on eProcurement and eInvoicing. On behalf of the Directorate General for Informatics (DIGIT), João Rodrigues Frade held a number of bilateral meetings with several stakeholders involved in the CEF Digital 2018 programme.

A public meeting of the European Committee for Standardization’s (CEN) was held in parallel at the end of the conference providing an insight into its ongoing work to define the eventual European Standard on eInvoicing, expected to be finalised in 2017.

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Agreement on syntaxes complying with the forthcoming European standard (EN) on Electronic Invoicing

The European Committee for Standardization’s (CEN) Technical Committee 434 (CEN/TC 434) was established in 2014 to define a European standard (EN) on Electronic Invoicing in the context of the Directive 2014/55/EU. Since its inception, CEN/TC 434 has undertaken a huge amount of work to this end as previously reported.

At a recent plenary meeting in Barcelona, CEN/TC 434 unanimously agreed to endorse UBL and CII as the syntaxes complying with the forthcoming EN and to be listed in a specific CEN Technical Specification (TS). Once the EN and TS are published by CEN and referenced in the  Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), contracting authorities and entities in the EU will have to receive and process electronic invoices which comply with the EN and any of the two syntaxes, in accordance with the provisions of Article 7 of Directive 2014/55/EU. 

The EN will also be tested as to its practical application for an enduser. The preparation of the test campaign is ongoing and will conclude shortly.

CEN's national members will hold a ballot early next year on the adoption of the EN and its ancillary standardisation documents. CEN will then publish the documents in the case of a positive result. The reference to the EN and the list of syntaxes will be successively published in the OJEU still during 2017.

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Live Webinar: CEF eDelivery - How can CEF help you set up your eDelivery infrastructure?

This webinar is part of a series exploring the CEF eDelivery building block, supported within the Digital Programme of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

CEF eDelivery enables Public Authorities and Businesses to exchange electronic data and documents with each other in a secure, reliable and interoperable way. As CEF eDelivery is domain-independent, it can be used to exchange any type of document and data.

Previous webinars have focused on the special relevance and benefits of eDelivery to industry, and how software vendors can best become a conformant eDelivery solution (with a special focus on grant funding). Previous webinars have also looked at the link between CEF eDelivery and the eIDAS Regulation ((EU) 910/2014), specifically the advent of Electronic Registered Delivery Service (ERDS), whereby CEF eDelivery and ERDS will contribute to the creation of a Digital Single Market.

By attending this webinar you will learn about:

We believe this exploration of How can CEF help you set up your eDelivery infrastructure? will make CEF eDelivery - and thereby the benefits it brings - even more accessible.

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CEF Digital 2018 Presents "Accelerating the digital transformation of government", at EWRC

The Workshop, part of the European Week Of Cities and Regions 2016, looked at "Accelerating the digital transformation of government" and presented the new eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020, which aims to accelerate the digital transformation of government in the EU.

During the event, Mr Joao Rodrigues Frade of the Directorate General for Informatics (DIGIT) presented the CEF building blocks, cross-border digital services supported by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the key EU funding instrument to promote the trans-European networks and infrastructure,

What are the Opportunities for Cities and Regions?

In his presentation, Mr Rodrigues Frade looked at the EUR 300 million that will be invested by CEF Telecom in grants between 2014 and 2020. The presentation looked at two concrete examples:

You can download the presentation in full here.

In addition, of specific relevance to Regions and Cities, reuse of the CEF building blocks reinforces security and trust through having common legal certainty and boosting trust, security and convenience on-line. Reuse of the CEF building blocks also enables efficiency gains by providing better access for consumers and businesses to digital services across Europe.

What are the CEF Building Blocks?

The CEF building blocks provide basic capabilities that are reusable in different ways, which underpin the creation of an interoperable and interconnected Europe. The CEF building blocks consist of key digital services, identified as required for most pan-European projects (such as message transfer or authentication).

The CEF building blocks (CEF eDelivery, eInvoicing, eID, eSignature and eTranslation) are Digital Service Infrastructure (DSI), which have the following characteristics:

• Designed for cross border use
• Deliver digital services
• Have sufficient maturity
• Support EU policies
• Plan to become sustainable
• As much as possible based on market-driven open standards and technical specifications

The CEF building blocks are regulated by the Regulation (EU) N°910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (eIDAS Regulation) and the eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020. Via the eGovernment Plan, the Commission will lead by example and reuse the CEF DSIs as an early adopter. As envisaged in the eGovernment Action Plan, use of the CEF building blocks will enable individuals and businesses to use electronic services easily and carry out cross-border online activities in a secure way.

During the workshop, presenters informed regional and local authorities on how they can contribute to achieving the overall vision of the plan by suggesting additional actions. In addition, the workshop showcased eGovernment initiatives at the regional and the local level that may be replicated by other regions and local authorities.

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CEF eDelivery and eInvoicing DSI Stakeholder Days

Register Now

We invite you to be part of the CEF eDelivery & eInvoicing Stakeholder Days, which are to be held on 29 November – 1 December 2016 at Centre Albert Borschette (Rue Froissart 36, 1049 Brussels).

The CEF eDelivery building block helps public administrations to exchange electronic data and documents with other public administrations, businesses and citizens, in an interoperable, secure, reliable and trusted way. The purpose of the CEF eInvoicing building block itself is to promote the uptake and accelerate the use of eInvoicing respecting the (forthcoming) European eInvoicing standard, amongst both public and private entities established in the EU, as well as in participating EEA countries.

The CEF eDelivery & eInvoicing Stakeholder days will also host networking receptions on wednesday 30 November and Thursday 1 December 2016.

Don't miss out!

Register Now

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CEF eTranslation: Making European Digital Public Services Multi-lingual

To learn more about the other CEF building blocks, watch our short video now 

Domibus v3.2 sample implementation of the eDelivery Access Point - Out Now!

We are happy to announce the release of the production-ready Domibus 3.2 sample implementation of the eDelivery Access Point.

As with previous releases, the Domibus 3.2 sample implementation has been achieved only by close collaboration between different EU policy projects' IT delivery teams and CEF eDelivery.

The Domibus 3.2 new release includes a number of improvements (some contained also in the Domibus 3.2 Release Candidate 1), including:

In addition, since the latest stable release Domibus 3.2 RC1, debugging and issue-solving has taken place.

However, Domibus 3.2 is backwards compatible with 3.1.x and the upgrade is not mandatory. PMode configuration files that were designed for Domibus 3.1.x can also be used in Domibus v3.2.

Download Access Point from the CEF Digital 2018 website now!

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IBM Joins List of e-SENS AS4 Conformant Solutions

The CEF eDelivery team is pleased to announce that IBM has joined the list of e-SENS AS4 conformant solutions.

IBM manufactures and markets computer hardware, middleware and software and is a household name in many organisations worldwide.

CEF eDelivery welcomes IBM following a process of conformance testing, one of the key services provided by the CEF eDelivery building block. IBM has been actively involved in the e-SENS large scale pilot and the advancement of CEF eDelivery services, such as participating in vendors workshops organised by the European Commission.

The CEF eDelivery Building Block enables Public Authorities and Businesses to exchange electronic data and documents with each other in a secure, reliable and interoperable way. As CEF eDelivery is domain-independent, it can exchange any type of document and data. Furthermore, CEF eDelivery has strong links and is conformant with Regulation (EU) 910/2014 on Electronic identification and trust services, commonly known as 'eIDAS'

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High Demand for CEF Digital 2018 Grants Supporting a Connected Europe!

Funded by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the European Commission's main financing instrument for trans-European networks, CEF Digital 2018 works to facilitate the delivery of digital public services across borders. 

Via the CEF building blocks, basic capabilities – such as message transfer or authentication – that are reusable in different ways, underpin the creation of an interoperable and interconnected Europe.

The CEF building blocks provide a range of services, tools and support for their users . In addition to this, the European Commission provides grant funding to cover the costs of implementation.  

Concerning the (now closed) CEF-TC-2016-2 Calls for Proposals, the CEF eDelivery and CEF eID & eSignature calls were both oversubscribed*, demonstrating a high demand for grant funding supporting the CEF building blocks.

While it is good news indeed that grant support for the CEF building blocks is in high demand, it remains important to note that these proposals are still subject to the review procedure as defined by the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), the EU agency responsible for administrating the calls.

If you are interested in grant funding for CEF eDelivery or CEF eID & eSignature, or applied and have not been successful, further grant funding will be made available in 2017.

From 20 September - 15 December 2016, grant funding is available for the CEF eInvoicing and CEF eTranslation building blocks.

Based on previous experience, we would like to note to those interested in submitting calls for proposals that it is always best to submit a call at the earliest possible opportunity, and ensure that you have read all the supporting documentation.

*submission results before eligibility checks have been carried out

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CEF eInvoicing Self-Assessment Tool Workshop, 14. September 2016

The European Commission held an all-day workshop to validate the CEF eInvoicing self-assessment tool with representatives of public entities, solution and service providers in Brussels on 14. September 2016.

Experts expressed satisfaction with the development of the self-assessment tool since the previous workshop on 15. June 2016 and at being involved as part of this process during this period. Specifically, experts highlighted the series of four conference calls – held between the two workshops – to develop and finalise a robust tool that satisfied all stakeholders involved.

In addition, the workshop covered a number of other topics related to upcoming activities to support public entities to adopting eInvoicing as part of their operations and solution and service providers to understand where the opportunities lie.

Please contact CEF BUILDING BLOCKS for more information.

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CEF eDelivery welcomes RSSBus to its Conformance Testing service!

CEF eDelivery is happy to welcome RSSBus to its Conformance Testing service! Once the conformance testing is successfully completed, RSSBus will be included in the list of compliant software vendors, available here.

The goal of the CEF eDelivery Conformance Testing service is to verify that an implementation of the CEF eDelivery Access Point and SMP specifications, a software package either commercial or Open Source, conforms to the specifications of the CEF eDelivery Access Point. The service tests the following specifications:

Software vendors offer alternative implementations of the e-SENS AS4 Profile (commercial or Open Source). They also provide different added-value services from integration to the support of day-to-day operations. To safeguard interoperability, CEF eDelivery encourages implementers to consult the list of software products that are using or have passed the conformance tests of the eSENS AS4 profile provided by the European Commission.

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