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CEF Digital 2018 Presented at S&R Conference 2017
European Commission, 2017
On 29 March 2017 the European Commission organised the Sharing & Reuse Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. The event was held under the umbrella of the ISA² Programme with the support of the Portuguese Administrative Modernization Agency (AMA).
The conference included a presentation by the European Commission on the digital programme financed by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – CEF Digital 2018. CEF Digital 2018 supports the provision of basic and re-usable digital services, known as the CEF building blocks. The CEF building blocks (eDelivery, eID, eSignature, eInvoicing & eTranslation) are available for free to public and/or private entities, depending on which CEF building blocks is being deployed, and can be subject to implementation costs. The CEF building blocks can be combined with each other and integrated with the more complex services, such as eHealth, eJustice or Cybersecurity.
In addition to the development and maintenance of the CEF building blocks, grant funding is provided by the Connecting Europe Facility to cover implementation costs. A €1.04 billion budget is earmarked for trans-European digital services for 2014-2020. The European Commission is running a number of calls for proposals in 2017, as outlined in the graph below:
- Download the CEF Digital 2018 presentation here;
- Visit the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency for further information on CEF grant funding here;
- Visit CEF Digital 2018 or all the information and tools you need to get started with the CEF building blocks here;
- Visit Joinup for recordings and further info on the Sharing & Reuse Conference here;
New figures published on the CEF Dashboard
The latest quarterly figures about the CEF Digital 2018 Service Infrastructure (DSIs) show that their adoption is rising steadily. These figures can be consulted directly on the CEF Dashboard.
In addition to updated figures for the last quarter of 2016, this release includes new datasets for the European e-Justice Portal, eSignature and numerous fix and tweaks.
The latest addition for eSignature is the number of Qualified Trust Service Providers providing the Qualified Certificates necessary for eSignature.
Furthermore, the dashboard also now provides information on the uptake of the Find a Lawyer, Find a Notary, European Case Law Identifier and Insolvency Registers Interconnection pages of the European e-Justice Portal DSI.
Finally, more projects have taken their first steps towards reusing CEF building blocks. You can monitor this progress directly via the CEF Reuse Watch.
The European Commission updates the CEF Dashboard on a quarterly basis with new data and features to improve the visibility on the progress made by the DSIs and enhance transparency.
To find out more, visit, the CEF Dashboard, CEF Digital 2018 or visit the European e-Justice Portal.
Innovations in digital public services showcased at Europe’s largest IT fair – CeBIT
Removing online barriers facing citizens, businesses and public administrations is one of the 10 political priorities of the European Commission, creating a Digital Single Market.
In the context of the Digital Single Market, EU Member States and the European Commission have piloted cross-border, cross-sector digital services, known as building blocks, and are moving now into production across Europe. The "Digital Public Services Across Borders" booth, located in the EU Village, Hall 8, will showcase these services.
Building Blocks are basic capabilities, such as message delivery, or authentication, that can be used to facilitate the delivery of digital public services across borders. Large Scale Pilots, comprising of public and private sector actors such as the e-SENS (Electronic Simple European Networked Services), or e-CODEX (e-Justice Communication via Online Data EXchange) have tested the building blocks in real IT systems across various policy domains. Member States, the private sector and the European Commission are now rolling-out the building blocks under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the EU's main financing instrument for cross-border infrastructure.
Visitors to the booth will discover a number of interesting gimmicks like a multi-touch screen, RFID-based information spots, games and quizzes, presentations, videos, click-through live demonstrations, experts’ statements and other gadgets. Interactive elements will provide guests with hands-on access to information and data relating to the booth's slogan “Digital Public Services Across Borders”. The stand will also highlight the EU legislation which addresses the challenges of connecting Europe with a particular attention given to the Regulation EU 910/2014 (the eIDAS Regulation) which provides the legal framework for the cross-border recognition of eID means and trust services. Visitors will be able to play and learn with innovative gimmicks, recognizing success stories, deployment opportunities and funding prospects.
Experience “digital public services across borders” in Hall 8, EU Village.
European eInvoicing Standard: Final Vote on Invoice Core Model & List of Syntaxes
The European Commission is delighted to announce that a decision has been taken on the European eInvoicing standard (EN), pursuant to Directive 2014/55/EU on eInvoicing in public procurement.
The European Commission mandated the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) to define the eInvoicing European standard. Following intense deliberations, CEN has duly announced the results concerning the invoice core model and syntaxes:
- The EN 16931-1 (invoice core model) approved with 25 positive votes, no negative votes (100%);
- The CEN/TS 16931-2 (list of syntaxes) approved with 24 positive votes, no negative votes (100%);
In light of a successful vote building on the excellent work of CEN, the Committee is on track to publish the final standard in the coming months. Once this has been achieved, the real work of supporting eInvoicing, respecting the European standard, can begin.
Benefits
eInvoicing reduces costs for economic operators and the environmental impact of paper-based invoices. The creation of a European standard for eInvoicing in public procurement prevents the continued proliferation of eInvoicing standards and syntaxes coexisting in the Member States, which leads to increased complexity in term of cross-border interoperability.
The online tool, a key service of the CEF eInvoicing building block allows Public Entities to check their level of readiness to exchange eInvoices with Service & Solution Providers in compliance with the Directive, and receive recommendations on what the next steps are to be compliant. Users of the tool can achieve this by creating a profile, either as a Public Entity or Service & Solution Provider.
The CEF eInvoicing building block promotes the uptake and accelerates the use of eInvoicing in full compliance with the European standard, amongst both public and private entities established in the EU.
The European Commission also supports eInvoicing with grant funding. Funding from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) helps applicants put the appropriate technical solutions and organisational set-up in place to ensure that authorities can receive and process eInvoices, respecting the coming standard. Owing to the high-demand for grant funding to support eInvoicing, the European Commission has increased the indicative level of funding to €10 million in 2017. See the CEF Telecom Work Programme for more!
Still Time to Participate: public consultation on European Catalogue of ICT standards
European Commission, March 2017
The European Commission is currently holding a public consultation to improve the draft contents of the European Catalogue of ICT standards.
At this stage, the consultation aims at collecting feedback on the contents, and at receiving advices on possible catalogue structure improvements.
The consultation is on the following contents:
- Contents and lists of standards related to the four domains studied by the project: eGovernment, Cloud Computing, Energy (Efficient use of energy in buildings), Transport (electronic tolling systems)
- ICT standards from CAMSS study and the Digital Agenda action 2
The consultation aims to check the information reported to verify that what we found is coherent, updated and relevant, and that the connection between the descriptions and the standards is correct, or to suggest new examples of procurement cases, relevant documentation, etc.
Financed by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the CEF building blocks are part of the European Catalogue of ICT Standards. Based on existing formalised technical specifications and standards, the CEF building blocks are intended to facilitate the adoption of common technical specifications, making it easier to interconnect complex digital services and IT systems across Europe, fundamental to establishing a connected Digital Single Market.
The consultation is open until March 23th.
e-SENS Closing Event 2017: Connecting Europe: Get on-board! From e-SENS pilots to reality
European Commisison, 2017
On 2-3 March 2017, the e-SENS Closing Event "Connecting Europe: Get on-board! From e-SENS pilots to reality" took stock of the remarkable progress of European collaboration on cross-border digital public services.
Since April 2013, the e-SENS Large Scale Pilot project has been consolidating results of previous European Large Scale Pilots, in areas such as online authentication or message-exchange.
The European Commission and e-SENS organised the event to mark e-SENS' successful completion and the move from piloting to the 'live phase' of European cross-border digital public services, supported by the digital services programme of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), CEF Digital 2018. This transition from pilots to reality included several of the CEF building blocks, piloted by e-SENS.
The successful handover from e-SENS to CEF Digital 2018, as well as other initiatives such as The Once-Only Principle (TOOP), ensures that no knowledge or experience from the e-SENS project is lost, and that the building blocks remain a sustained as a stable part of Europe's digital ecosystem.
The second day of the event focussed on the handover of ownership of a number of building blocks from e-SENS to CEF Digital 2018.
The CEF building blocks enable secure cross-border digital interactions between citizens, businesses and public administrations. In practical terms they are common solutions to common problems built on common standards and specifications. The European Commission supports adoption of the building blocks with CEF grant funding.
A panel discussion including: Andrea Servida, Head of Unit, eGovernment & Trust in DG CNECT, European Commission; Nathalie Nickel, EU Projects Coordinator and Administrator, Government of North-Rheine Westphalia; Gérard Soisson, Head of Unit for the EU & International Affairs Unit, Government IT Centre of Luxembourg and Niels Pagh-Rasmussen, Executive Architect, IBM, explored the value of the CEF building blocks from both the public and private sector perspective.
Experts in the European Commission working on the CEF building blocks (CEF eDelivery, eID, eInvoicing, eSignature and eTranslation) presented the history, status and future direction of the CEF building blocks. The Innovation & Networks Executive Agency (INEA) presented on how to best submit proposals for grant funding under CEF.
To discover more how the CEF building blocks are #ConnectingEurope, visit CEF Digital 2018
CEF Telecom: over €11 million in EU funding to boost secure and efficient online services across Europe
European Commission, 2017
The Innovation & Networks Executive Agency (INEA) has published a breakdown of the latest figures from the second and fourth CEF Telecom call for proposals of 2017.
The evaluation of the second and fourth 2016 CEF Telecom call for proposals (CEF-TC-2016-2 and CEF-TC-2016-4) has concluded and 24 projects in the areas of eDelivery, eID & eSignature, European e-Justice Portal, Public Open Data and Safer Internet have been selected to receive co-funding by the European Union. The funding comes from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme in the telecommunications sector. The successful projects include participation of entities from 20 EU Member States plus Norway and Iceland.
For a breakdown of the results (i.e. how many proposals have received funding and for which calls), a list of projects receiving funding and further information on CEF Telecom calls for proposals:
Learn more about how grant funding provided for by the Connecting Europe Facility is digitally #ConnectingEurope, visit CEF Digital 2018.
Check it out! eInvoicing Readiness Checker Gains Momentum
On 31 January 2017, the European Commission launched the eInvoicing Readiness Checker, a tool designed for Public Entities to assess their compliance with the Directive 2014/55/EU electronic invoicing in public procurement.
Electronic invoicing (eInvoicing) reduces costs for economic operators and the environmental impact of paper-based invoices. On the 16 April 2014, the European Parliament and Council passed Directive 2014/55/EU to prevent the continued proliferation of eInvoicing standards and syntaxes coexisting in the Member States, which lead to increased complexity in term of cross-border interoperability.
In light of this Directive, the CEF eInvoicing building block provides a number of services to support eInvoicing in Europe, including the eInvoicing Readiness Checker.
The online tool allows Public Entities to check their level of readiness to exchange eInvoices with Service & Solution Providers in compliance with the Directive, and receive recommendations on what the next steps are to be compliant. Users of the tool can achieve this by creating a profile, either as a Public Entity or Service & Solution Provider.
Profiles on the eInvoicing Readiness Checker allow Service & Solution Providers to present their services to Europe's eInvoicing community. Only basic information, such as an organisational overview, geographical coverage and language(es), is required, so your profile can be up-and-running with minimum hassle.
For Public Entities, creating a profile is just as easy. Creating a profile will also allow you to take the Self-Assesment. This in turn will help you understand exactly what you need to do to be compliant with this Directive, and where you can receive support. By doing this you will be ready to begin your journey to compliance with the Directive, supporting eInvoicing - and all the socio-economic benefits it brings - in Europe.
Since its launch, Public Entities have created 12, and Service & Solution Providers 13 profiles on the eInvoicing Readiness Checker respectively, in addition to those created by the early adopters. Progress has been made, as demonstrated by the continued uptake of the eInvoicing Readiness Checker. However, the more profiles created on the online tool increase the amount of knowledge and experience, to the collective benefit of all users of the tool.
There is no better time for Service & Solution Providers to showcase their services on a tool dedicated to supporting compliance with the Directive, keeping ahead of market trends. For Public Entities, obliged by the Directive to comply with the European standard (on eInvoicing), creating a profile gives you access to the body of Lessons Learned and Success Stories provided to assist those starting their eInvoicing journey.
A Europe where invoices can cross boarders electronically, reducing bureaucracy and environmental impact is around the corner. Are you ready to join the European Commisison, Member States and stakeholders on this Journey?
The European Commission also supports eInvoicing with grant funding. Funding from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) helps applicants put the appropriate technical solutions and organisational set-up in place to ensure that authorities can receive and process eInvoices, respecting the coming standard. Owing to the high-demand for grant funding to support eInvoicing, the European Commission has increased the indicative level of funding to €10 million in 2017. See the CEF Telecom Work Programme for more!
To discover how CEF eInvoicing is #ConnectingEurope, visit CEF Digital 2018.
Webinar on CEF eDelivery and eIDAS ERDS with Postal Service Operators
European Commission, March 2017
On 10 March 2017, the European Commission held a webinar on Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market), the eIDAS Regulation, and Electronic Registered Delivery Service (ERDS) providers. The webinar specifically targeted Postal Service Operators to provide information on how ERDS, as defined in the eIDAS Regulation, affects service providers, and how CEF eDelivery maps the requirements for the ERDS qualified status.
The CEF-funded NOBLE project, coordinated by Governikus KG, was also presented to demonstrate how the reuse of CEF eDelivery can support the exchange of cross-border electronic documents in different domains. The objective of the NOBLE project is to set up an eDelivery infrastructure in four Member States, Germany, France, Greece and Slovakia.
This webinar was an opportunity for the participants to discuss the implementation of the qualified status for the ERDS and its implications in their postal services.
The participants in this webinar learnt about:
- The eIDAS Regulation and the Electronic Registered Delivery Service (ERDS)
- The qualified ERDS EU trust mark
- CEF eDelivery mapping of the ERDS requirements laid out by the eIDAS Regulation
- Example of an CEF eDelivery reuse project to connect Postal Services Operators in different Member States
The presentations delivered are available here.
To discover how CEF eDelivery is #ConnectingEurope, visit CEF Digital 2018.
FIWARE Open Day - the Community Around the Creation of Digital Services Across Europe
European Commission, 2017
The FIWARE Open Day, held in Brussels on 7 March 2017, was a networking opportunity for industrial players, start-ups, researchers, developers and public actors involved in the creation of digital services across Europe.
By bringing together stakeholders from different sectors, this event supported the development of the FIWARE ecosystem in the fields of Agri-food, Smart Cities and Industry sectors, among others. Aiming to the development of the Digital Single Market, by building open sustainable ecosystem around public, royalty-free and implementation-driven software platform standards, this FIWARE event was a unique opportunity to discuss the journey for the creation of a new ecosystem for growth, business and jobs in Europe.
The European Commission was invited to present the CEF building blocks at the FIWARE Open Day, in the context of increased collaboration between CEF eDelivery and FIWARE.
In addition, the European Commission is happy to announce the recent publication of the CEF eDelivery FIWARE Lab guidance paper. Part of the CEF eDelivery "Training and Deployment" services, the guidance paper provides some "hands-on experience" of implementing CEF eDelivery.
For more information on the CEF building blocks and how the European Commission and Member States are working to #ConnectEurope digitally, visit CEF Digital 2018.
2017-1 CEF Telecom calls Virtual Info Day: Recording Now Online
The Innovation & Networks Executive Agency (INEA) organised the 2017-1 CEF Telecom calls virtual Info Day on Tuesday 28 February 2017. The Info Day covered four priorities of the 2017 CEF Telecom Calls which opened on 17 February:
- CEF eID & CEF eSignature
- Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS), including financing for CEF eDelivery
- Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESSI)
- European e-Justice Portal
Webstreaming & Recording
The event was web streamed and the full recording is public. The link will remain available two years.
Please use the browser Chrome in case you experience problems watching the recording.
Q&A
The Info Day also offered the opportunity to ask questions to Commission and Agency staff members pertaining to the calls via email to INEA-CEF-Telecoms-Infoday@ec.europa.eu & Twitter @inea_eu #CEFTelecomDay. Questions received during the event were answered immediately, and written replies will be available on INEA's FAQ page after the event.
The event was live tweeted with the hashtag #CEFTelecomDay. Follow @inea_eu in order to receive all up-to-date news relating to Calls for Proposals.
Evaluation survey
If you participated, the European Commission kindly asks you to complete the survey here. It will take you less than two minutes.
Agenda
You can find a downloadable event agenda below:
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To see how the CEF building blocks are #ConnectingEurope, visit CEF Digital 2018 now.
Version 2.0 of the European Data Portal is Live
The European Commission is happy to announce the release of version 2.0 of the European Data Portal.The European Data Portal harvests the metadata of Public Sector Information available on public data portals across European countries. Information regarding the provision of data and the benefits of re-using data is also included.
The portal is a key component of the Public Open Data Digital Service Infrastructure (DSI), financed by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
The European Data Portal is continuously developing new content and features. Version 2.0 provides a more user-friendly design, new content and new features.
What major technical changes have been made?version 2.0 of the European Data Porta
The responsiveness of the portal has been improved, allowing users to seamlessly use the portal on each of their devices!
New languages on the Portal: did you know that the portal is now available in all 24 official European Union languages?
The SPARQL-manager (advanced search) has been enhanced.
The Metadata Quality Assessment dashboard has been enhanced with several new functionalities, including a download function and information on licence quality.
What are the main content updates?
New design of the homepage with a new menu structure and a different lay-out, resulting in a more user-friendly portal!
News items and use cases are easier to find, thanks to the new faceted search function!
Many more new use cases: the number of use cases of Open Data is expanding. Currently, over 160 use cases are available on our portal: explore them here
Public Open Data: access to re-usable public sector information
The Public Open Data infrastructure's objective is to help boost the re-use and combination of open public data across the EU for the development of information products and services. The Public Open Data DSI reuses the CEF eTranslation and CEF eID building blocks.
To see how the CEF building blocks are #ConnectingEurope visit CEF Digital 2018.
What does it mean to be eIDAS Compliant? Webinar on eID under eIDAS
European Commission, March 2017
On 7 March 2017, experts from the European Commission, Member States and the private sector, discussed electronic identification (eID) under the eIDAS Regulation, with approximately 230 participants in attendance.
The goal of the live webinar was to align participants on the meaning of being eIDAS-compliant, explore this with examples and use cases, and offer an opportunity for participants to discuss, interact and exchange views.
Regulation (EU) N°910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (commonly known as the eIDAS Regulation), provides a predictable regulatory environment to enable secure and seamless electronic interactions between businesses, citizens and public authorities.
The Regulation is therefore central to a number of building blocks, financed by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), based on identification and electronic transactions, namely CEF eID, CEF eSignature and CEF eDelivery.
The European Commission provided an update on where Member States stand in terms of putting in place eIDAS-compliant eID infrastructure, as well as their plans for the future. In this context, a recent milestone towards establishing eID and trust services in the EU has been the pre-notification by Germany of online ID function of its national identity card and electronic residence permit. This is a major step forward since, as of September 2018, all Member States will have to recognise the notified German eID scheme as well as all the other notified schemes to access at least online public services. Representatives from Austria, the Netherlands and the UK shared their national experiences of putting eIDAS-compliant eID infrastructure in place. For example, Hebert Leitold from the Secure Information Technology Centre, Austria, noted that “the webinar was an excellent opportunity to exchange on the eIDAS state of play and to discuss with interested parties”. Public and private organisations provided concrete examples of eIDAS-compliant eID for the private sector, such as eHealth and mobile identification. Gautam Hazari and Marta Ienco from GSMA concluded “just like the Commission, we consider eIDAS as a fundamental milestone to create a trustworthy digital identity ecosystem […] Therefore, building on the success of a GSMA previous technical proof of concept, [GSMA] just established a working group of public and private multi-stakeholders experts to drive forward a Mobile Connect for eIDAS implementation Pilot and we are inviting interested parties to join this initiative”.
Finally, presenters from the private sector looked to exchange knowledge about key technological trends impacting the field of electronic identification.
Jeremy Grant from the Chertoff Group looked at how fast-paced technological change affects policy. He noted that passwords are no longer considered sufficient as a cybersecurity tool and technology now allows us to have all the functionalities of a smart card (and more) on our smartphones. Multi-factor authentication, he explained, is now easily accessible - in large part due to new standards developed by the FIDO Alliance - and can be applied well beyond the traditional use-cases (e.g. banking). Mr Grant concluded that eIDAS allows for integration between eID schemes in the Member States actively collaborating on harmonisation, while at the same time facilitating integration with the private sector, which has a strong interest for cross-border identification.
Pascal Nizri from Chekk.me concluded the webinar on a similar theme, looking at why cross-sector, cross-domain and cross-border Digital Identity solutions are required, to help achieve the key balance between offering a customer a seamless experience whilst also providing adequate security, especially in the baking sector. Mr Nizri noted that "customers expectations and regulatory environment are shifting personal data ownership from businesses to individuals, to the benefit of both. Chekk.me enables this shift with cross-businesses, cross-banks, cross-industries and cross-borders Digital Identity and KYC solutions".
The CEF eID building block helps public administrations and private online service providers to easily extend the use of their online services to citizens from other EU Member States. The CEF eID solution can assist compliance with eIDAS Regulation, which ensures legal certainty and cross-border mutual recognition by providing a clear regulatory framework. CEF eID can be combined with other CEF building blocks to create more complex services. In the words of Michael de Boer, European Commission IT Services Officer for CEF eSignature, "the possibility for combining different building blocks, such as eSignature and eID, are endless. That's why we call them building blocks".
To discover how CEF eID is #ConnectingEurope, visit CEF Digital 2018 now.
CEF eDelivery 'Security Controls' Guidance Document is Online!
CEF eDelivery is happy to announce the publication of the CEF eDelivery Security Controls' guidance document.
The guidance document addresses the security controls and recommendations applicable to CEF eDelivery message exchange in Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (the eIDAS regulation).
As the message exchange Use Case is closely linked to the Electronic Registered Delivery Service (ERDS), a trust service under the eIDAS regulation, this document maps the Qualified ERDS (QERDS) requirements to the security controls of eDelivery.
In this document, the message exchange Use Case uses the AS4 messaging protocol, according to the e-SENS profile, without dynamic discovery i.e. without the Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) and the Service Metadata Locator (SML).
CEF eDelivery helps public administrations to exchange electronic data and documents with other public administrations, businesses and citizens, in an interoperable, secure, reliable and trusted way. Through the use of this building block, every participant becomes a node in the network using standard transport protocols and security policies.
For more information on how CEF eDelivery is #ConnectingEurope, visit CEF Digital 2018 now!