CEF Digital 2018 at the 4th International B2B Software Days

Wirtschaftskammern Österreichs (WKO), 2017

On 25-26 April 2017, the European Commission presented the benefits of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) building blocks at the "4th International B2B Software Days: The Future of Digital Business" in Vienna, Austria.

The CEF building blocks offer basic capabilities that can be used in any European project to facilitate the delivery of digital public services across borders. The current catalogue of CEF building blocks includes CEF eDelivery, providing data exchange; eID & eSignature, facilitating authentication; eTranslation, specialised machine translation and eInvoicing, supporting eInvoicing respecting the forthcoming European standard. The CEF building blocks may be deployed individually or combined to create more complex digital services, such as Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) or eHealth.

The CEF building blocks were included as part of the workshop: "Successful International Market Launch – finding new clients" and were presented alongside the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN). The event was organised by the Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (FFG), the Wirtschaftskammern Österreichs (WKO)/Advantage Austria, the Vienna Business Agency, Austria Wirtschaftsservice in collaboration with Eureka, the go-international initiative and the EEN. The event provided a chance for participants to discover the latest trends in digital business and find international cooperation partners for research, technology and business projects.

The EEN, supported by the European Commission, helps businesses innovate and grow on an international scale. It is the world’s largest support network for SMEs with international ambitions.

To discover how the CEF building blocks are Connecting Europe, visit CEF Digital 2018 now and/or download the here.

The “Once-Only” Principle (TOOP) Project Is Underway

On 1 January 2017, the European Commission launched the “Once-Only” Principle (TOOP) project. The “Once-Only” principle in the context of the public sector means that citizens and businesses supply diverse data only once to a public administration.

On 18 and 19 April 2017, TOOP organised a workshop with over 50 organisations (public administration organisations, research organisations and private companies) from EU Member States and Associated Countries to align the understanding of the use-cases and requirements of the project.   

The eDelivery building block, supported by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the EU's main financing instrument for cross-border networks, was represented to ensure that this building block can be reused in "once-only" approaches in the context of the TOOP project. CEF eDelivery allows European public administrations to send and receive data in an interoperable, secure, reliable and trusted way.

The TOOP project is funded under Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and coordinated by the Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). The project explores and demonstrates the “once-only” principle on a cross-border scale with the aim to reduce the administrative burden of businesses and public administrations. The project is part of the EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 and will contribute towards the creation of a Digital Single Market.

CEF eSignature DSS Now Compliant with eIDAS

The European Commission is happy to announce the release of version 5.0 of the Digital Signature Services (DSS) open-source library of the eSignature building block, supported by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

DSS is an open-source library supporting the creation and validation of electronic signatures in line with European legislation and standards.

In addition to a range of new features, version 5.0 is fully compliant with Regulation No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market, better known as the eIDAS Regulation.

While DSS version 4.9 was already fully eIDAS-compliant in terms of electronic signature creation, with version 5.0, DSS can now validate e-signatures created before and after the coming into force of the eIDAS Regulation (in compliance with draft standard ETSI 119 172-4).

The eSignature building block supports the use of cross-border interoperable electronic signatures in Europe. This means that a Greek entrepreneur can sign a permit application in Helsinki and expect it to be recognized by public authorities in Dublin. 

To discover how CEF eSignature is #Connecting Europe and learn more about grant funding available to support the uptake of the building block visit CEF Digital 2018 now.

Further Materials Approved by CEN

European Commission 2017

After the positive results on the semantic data model and the list of syntaxes of the European eInvoicing standard, the European Commission is happy to announce the following documents have been unanimously approved by European Committee for Standardisation (CEN):

• CEN/TS 16931-3-1 Syntax binding methodology
• CEN/TR 16931-4 Transmission guidelines
• CEN/TR 16931-5 Extension methodology

Owing to continued efforts by CEN to validate the necessary material, official publication of the European eInvoicing standard remains foreseen in the next months.

Supporting eInvoicing in Europe

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) building blocks support the establishment of cross-border digital services in Europe. 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 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.

Grant Funding

The European Commission also supports eInvoicing with grant funding. Funding from 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.

The CEF eInvoicing Readiness Checker

The eInvoicing Readiness Checker is a tool designed for Public Entities to assess their compliance with the Directive 2014/55/EU and is a key service of the CEF eInvoicing building block. It 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.

For more information on how CEF eInvoicing is Connecting Europe visit CEF Digital 2018.

CEF Building Blocks Presented at the EEN ICT Sector Group Meeting, Torino

European Commission, 2017

On Thursday 6 April 2017, the European Commission presented the building blocks of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), as well as grant funding available to support the adoption of the CEF building blocks, to the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) ICT Sector Group.

The CEF building blocks (CEF eID, eDelivery, eInvoicing, eSignature & eTranslation) 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, agreed upon by the EU Member States.

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's Innovation & Networks Executive Agency (INEA) is organising a number of calls for proposals in 2017, as outlined in the graph below:

Finally, the European Commission presented the CEF Dashboard. The Dashboard provides an overview of the progress, quality and uptake of the Digital Service Infrastructures of the CEF. Recently, the European Commission published updated figures for the last quarter of 2016. This included new datasets for the European e-Justice Portal, eSignature and numerous fix and tweaks.

The Enterprise Europe Network helps businesses innovate and grow on an international scale. It is the world’s largest support network for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with international ambitions. The Network is active in more than 60 countries worldwide. It brings together 3,000 experts from more than 600 member organisations – all renowned for their excellence in business support.

• Download the CEF building blocks presentation here
• Download the INEA Presentation here
• Discover the building blocks on the CEF Digital 2018 website here
• Visit the Enterprise Europe Network here
• Visit the CEF Dashboard and see the latest data published here

Achieving the Digital Single Market: Enabling Cross-Border Authentication with CEF eID

The European Commission and EU Member States have been actively working towards establishing cross-border interoperable solutions for digital services that can act as key enablers for digital services in the Digital Single Market. Currently supported by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), 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.

European Commission 2017

STORK & ISA Beginnings

The ability to use national electronic means of identification (be it a card, a login, etc...) abroad is not automatic per se. In addition, allowing diverse IT systems to interact with one another – i.e. be interoperable  –  is a complex and multi-disciplinary issue covering legal, operational, semantic and technical aspects. It requires that Member States agree on common standards to make their national systems compatible.

To meet this challenge the European Commission initiated and co-funded a real life pilot project, better known as the STORK, an eID Large Scale Pilot. Large Scale Pilots are public and private sector collaborations that work to connect Europe digitally across-boarders. Owned by the European Commission's Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CONNECT) and implemented by a consortium of public and private entities, STORK aimed at solving the issues of cross-border interoperability of eID by piloting natural person authentication and on behalf of legal entities. An additional output of STORK was the development of STORK technical specifications and source-code.
 

The European Commission's ISA² programme played a key role in supporting STORK. ISA, based in the European Commission's Directorate General for Informatics (DIGIT), maintained the STORK 1.0 code and integrated the STORK infrastructure with the European Commissions’ Authentication Service (ECAS), now known as EU Login. This allowed for the use of national eID schemes to logon to digital online services of the European Commission. ISA enabled the STORK-EU Login integration to allow officials within a European public administration to login to European Commission’s applications and grant access based on their role or position.

In addition, the ISA² action on Power and Mandates aims at creating a shared European model for maintaining electronic information on the powers and mandates of legal entities. Information on legal entities and their powers and mandates is essential for businesses when establishing relationships with governments, customers or other businesses. However, the cross-border exchange of information is limited by the lack of semantic standards. The absence of such standards prevents automated data processing within Europe, and decreases information reliability. The European Commission aims to overcome this obstacle by creating a common classification for the powers and mandates of legal entities. This model will allow the automatic processing of data from one EU country in the IT systems of others. The action will build on the results of the CEF eID project and the ISA Core Vocabularies

The e-SENS Large Scale Pilot

e-SENS, running from 2015-2017, increased the possibilities to use eID by conducting pilots across various domains, including eProcurement, eHealth, eJustice, Business Lifecycle, Citizen Lifecycle and eAgriculture. Thus, e-SENS permits businesses, citizens and government employees to use the presently widespread (nationally issued) electronic identities in cross-border public and private services.

Concretely, e-SENS, aimed to consolidate the work achieved by previous pilots in different domains and thereby facilitate the deployment of cross-border digital services through generic and re-usable technical components. The work of e-SENS, using STORK 2.0, also contributed to the cross-border digital service infrastructures foreseen in the regulation for implementing the Connecting Europe Facility.

The Connecting Europe Facility

The Digital Single Market strategy aims to ensure that public administrations, business and citizens can seamlessly access and exercise online activities, in a secure environment and across borders. The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) offers EU funding to expand high-speed broadband Internet network across Europe and deploy Digital Service Infrastructures (DSIs), supporting EU-wide standards and interoperable services for improved service users experience and giving concrete opportunities for businesses to grow by reaping the benefits offered by the digitalisation of the economy.

CEF supports basic and re-usable digital services, known as the CEF building blocks, as well as sector-specific DSI across a variety of domains. The CEF building blocks can be combined with each other and integrated with sector specific DSIs and a variety of online services. The catalogue of re-usable building blocks so far includes eID, eSignature, eInvoicing, eDelivery and eTranslation.

DSI projects deploy trans-European digital services based upon mature technical and organisational solutions, currently supporting DSIs in 15 different domains, in areas as diverse as electronic identification, online dispute resolution and interoperable health services. The projects contribute to improvements in daily life of Europeans through digital inclusion, to the connectivity and interoperability of European digital services, and therefore the development of a Digital Single Market.

The European Commission service DG CONNECT defines the strategic and policy direction of CEF eID, while DIGIT provides technical operation, in close collaboration with the Member States. CEF eID now coordinates work undertaken by the Member States on the technical specifications and sample implementation that Member States can use to enable the provision of their national eID schemes for use across border by setting up an eIDAS Node.

Compared to the previous projects, CEF eID implementation is backed up by the eIDAS Regulation that was adopted in 2014 to provide a regulatory environment enabling secure and seamless electronic interactions between businesses, citizens and public authorities in order to increase the effectiveness of public and private online services in the EU. As such, CEF eID is a technical adaptation of STORK 2.0 to comply with the eIDAS Regulation.

In the context of CEF eID, the eIDAS Regulation provides the legal framework for the cross-border recognition of eID means, ensuring their interoperability and legal certainty. With eIDAS, the European Union has laid the foundations for citizens, businesses and public administrations to access and use on-line services in a more reliable, responsible and convenient manner. CEF eID provides the services and specifications outlined above to help Member States meet the requirements of the eIDAS Regulation.

CEF eID continues to learn from the key findings of past LSPs and has been closely collaborating with e-SENS to make cross-border eID a reality and ensure achieving compliance with the EU legislation on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions, the eIDAS Regulation.

Next steps

The uptake and use of CEF eID by the private sector - who are potentially the biggest users and contributors to the Digital Single Market - will help achieve the fulfilment of the Digital Single Market, itself estimated to contribute as much as €415 billion per year to the European economy.

Grant funding supported by the Connecting Europe Facility will support the continued roll-out and adoption of CEF eID until 2020. You can find more information on grant from the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA). Furthermore, DG CNECT is undertaking a long-term (post-2020) sustainability study for the building blocks to ensure the deepening of the Member States’ cooperation in this field.