Fostering Innovative Procurement: eInvoicing Benefits Analysis

On 28 November 2019, the European Commission published the eInvoicing Benefit Analysis. 

The European Commission commissioned this analysis to underline the benefits arising from the usage of eInvoicing according to the eInvoicing Directive. The analysis draws extensively from data provided to the Commission by members of the EMSFEI. The EMSFEI oversees both the policy and technical implementation mandates for Business-to-Government (B2G) eInvoicing in the EU Member States. 

This Benefits Analysis describes how "cost savings", "reduction of the administrative burden", "facilitation of cross-border trade", "reduced time to pay for individual invoices", and "contribution to eInvoicing processing automation" are the key areas where eInvoicing should brings optimisation and efficiency. This study provides you an evaluation of the affects of the Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement in these areas. 

The benefits analysis clearly outlines how some MS take advantage of eInvoicing respecting the European standard, work on-going and where improvements in workflow can be made. You will find information on on-going works and major sources of improvement in the management of eInvoices. 

Directive 2014/55/EU calls for the definition of a common European standard on eInvoicing at semantic level (the core information contained in the eInvoice) as well as a list of syntaxes (the format or language used for transmission of the eInvoice). This standard is a key enabler of the digitalisation of public procurement in Europe. The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) eInvoicing Building Block promotes the successful uptake of the European standard.

Read Benefit Analysis

How will Blockchain Connect Europe?

Blockchain has the potential to permeate general economic activities and public services at large. The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) is a joint initiative from the European Commission and the European Blockchain Partnership (EBP) to deliver EU-wide cross-border public services using blockchain technology.

In 2020, EBSI will become a Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Building Block, providing reusable software, specifications and services. This means increased online security when citizens, bushinesses and public administrations operate across borders.

Visit EBSI

Dutch AS4 Energy Market Profile available in English

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The non-profit association NEDU (de Vereniging Nederlandse EnergieDataUitwisseling) has published the AS4 Energy Market Profile (AS4 Energiemarkt Profiel”) in English.

In September 2019, the Dutch energy sector formally approved a specification of AS4 as communication protocol in the Dutch national energy market.

The Dutch energy sector develops its own market processes under the supervision of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM). NEDU plays a central role in the development and implementation of market processes and is a platform that connects the roles of various market operators. It covers both gas and electricity and both wholesale, retail and metering processes.

AS4 is the message exchange protocol promoted by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) eDelivery Building Block. “AS4 Energiemarkt Profiel” is closely based on the CEF eDelivery AS4, including the Four Corner Enhancement and Pull enhancements.

AS4 Energy Market Profile (English)

EBSI at Convergence - The Global Blockchain Congress 2019

On 11-13 November 2019, the European Blockchain Services Infrasturture (EBSI) team attended Convergence - The Global Blockchain Congress 2019. The event was co-organised by the European Commission, INATBA and Alastria. The inaugural edition was a great success with close to 1400 attendees representing over 50 countries, some 230 speakers and over 80 keynotes, panels, fireside chats, roundtables and meetings. 

The EBSI is a joint initiative from the European Commission and the European Blockchain Partnership (EBP) to deliver EU-wide cross-border public services using blockchain technology. The EBSI will be materialised as a network of distributed nodes across Europe (the blockchain), leveraging an increasing number of applications focused on specific use cases. In 2020, the EBSI will become a Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Building Block, providing reusable software, specifications and services to support adoption by European public administrations and the EU Institutions.

This event brought together the worldwide blockchain community, technology startups, investors, academia and policy makers from EU Member States. The event also welcomed international organisations such as World Bank, UN, OECD, EIB/EIF, IADB, ECB, WEF, WTO and many others. The event welcomed high-level participants including the President of Latvia Egils Levits and Olivier Guersent – Director-General of DG FISMA at the European Commission. Attendees had the opportunity to develop their network, hear from experts and learn how to meet the challenges of blockchain faced by business and society. 

The EBSI team held a booth during the event to promote the project. During two days the team interacted with participants from both the private and public sector to share views on blockchain and explain the ambition shared by the Member States and the Commission. 

During the event, Member States representatives discussed the status of EBSI. In addition, both the Policy and Technical groups of the European Blockchain Partnership met for their third quarterly meeting. The different use case user groups met to work on the legal and economic assessment of the EBSI. Finally, INATBA and the EBP met for the first time to prepare future collaboration.

Learn more about EBSI

CORDIS Results Pack on Digital government and co-creating innovative public services for citizens and businesses

This CORDIS Results Pack showcases 10 EU-funded projects that have pioneered innovative solutions and processes to fully launch Europe’s public services into the digital realm

The Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) is the European Commission's primary source of results from the projects funded by the EU's framework programmes for research and innovation (FP1 to Horizon 2020).

From our individual wellbeing to our security, efficient and transparent public services have a direct impact on the quality of our lives. When used to their full potential, digital tools to support the modernisation of public administrations could further facilitate administrative processes, improve the quality of services through flexible and personalised interactions and increase public sector efficiency.

Delivering innovative eGovernment solutions and applying principles such as the 'Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Building Blocks', ‘digital-by-default’, ‘usercentricity’ – in particular ‘citizen engagement’ – and ‘once-only’ are some of the goals of the projects supported by the EU. By funding research that furthers these principles, whether it is putting in place technical solutions or encouraging citizen participation, the EU is bringing down the barriers that currently prevent us from exploiting digital technologies to their full.

Download the report

eInvoicing Workshop "Subcentral level implementation"

On 12 November 2019, the members of the European Multistakeholder Forum on eInvoicing (EMSFEI) and business association representatives particpated in a workshop on eInvoicing subcentral implementation. 

Ms Irena Riviere-Osipov (eInvoicing Policy officer, DG GROW) and Mr David Blanchard (DG GROW G4, (acting) Head of Unit for Innovative and eProcurement) welcomed the participants and provided a state of play regaridng the transpositon of Directive2014/55/EU on the eInvoicing in public procurement and use of eInvoicing at the subcentral level. You can visit the Commission's eInvoicing country factsheets to see the situation in each Member State.

During the session, five speakers from different Member States shared their experiences and good practices regarding their achievements at the subcentral level. 

• Justin Jager (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Netherlands) highlighted that in the Netherlands, central and subcentral levels have different ways of adopting eInvoicing. At the subcentral level, there is no obligation for the eInvoicing solution to be the only system available. Hence, in some municipalities, paper and PDF are still used in addition to the eInvoicing system. At the central level, the Dutch Government only accepts eInvoices.  
• Santiago Grana (General Secretariat of Digital Administration, Spain) stated that it is not mandatory for subcentral authorities to have a platform in place. But, the subcentral entities must exchange eInvoices using a web-portal or web-services. The Spanish government supports the take-up at subcentral level by providing a service portal for those administations where they complete a form, allowing them to use the service. 
• Lars Engberg (DIGG, Sweden) pointed out that Sweden already had a system in place before the Directive came into force. Therefore, the goal is now to upgrade the system in place to comply with the European standard on eInvoicing. Today, 52.5% of exchanged eInvoices are connected to the PEPPOL network, at national and subcentral levels. Mr Engberg concluded that it is important to have an electronic trace of each step of the eProcurement chain. 
• Pirjo Ilola (Ministry of Finance (State Treasury agency, Finland) underlined that municipalities are faced with a very high number of competing tasks, in which many issues, for example related to healthcare provision, are deemed as having a higher priority than eInvoicing. 
• Sébastien Rabineau (AIFE (Ministère de l’Economie, ChorusPro, France) stated that as in France, the aim is to ensure the swift adoption at the subcentral level. France uses a central platform (Chorus Pro). They have around three thousand EDI and API partners directly connected to the platform. These partners work with the end-users who then find it very easy to submit eInvoices.

Following this best practices presentation and testimonies, Christian Vindinge Rasmussen and Martin Forsberg (DIGIT D3, CEF eInvoicing trainers) took the opportunity to respond to the points raised by the speakers and participants who shared the status and key highlights from their respective countries. 

Through adoption of the European standard, the Commission encourages interoperability in the area of eInvoicing and eProcurement in Europe. In this sense, the participants underlined the importance of mutual cooperation. Mr Rasmussen and Mr Forsberg encouraged the audience to build their own knowledge and on-board new actors. The ultimate aim is for Europe's public sector to benefit from the eProcurement automation and secured payment processes to ensure the best quality public procurement (order matching, better pricing and deliveries), as well as enabeling quantitative monitoring through statistics. 

The Commission supports the standards' implementation with the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) eInvoicing Building Block. CEF eInvoicing offers public and private sectors on-site eInvoicing Trainings and Workshops; supporting webinars, a User Community hosting online discussions, a Registry of supporting artefacts to implement European standard and a dedicated Conformance Testing Service.

In order to reach a larger panel of subcentral stakeholders, CEF organises an open, webinar on the 16 December 2019. This webinar will allow participants to share more extensively the highlights and findings from this (closed) workshop to a larger audience.

Registrations open soon. Subscribe to the CEF Building Blocks Bulletin for updates on CEF eInvoicing events and more

Register

The Digital Innovation Challenge launched at the Web Summit 2019

On 7 November 2019, the European Commission launched the Digital Innovation Challenge for Europe’s SMEs and startups at the Web Summit 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal.

At a packed opening ceremony, the Commission's Director for Digital Services Emanuele Baldacci  announced that the winning SMEs and startups stand to win EUR 50 000 (first place), EUR 20 000 (second place) and EUR 10 000 (third place).

The Digital Innovation Challenge invites SMEs and startups, providers of digital services across Europe, to propose innovative services and solutions based on the European Commission’s open and reusable solutions. The Challenge is particularly targeted at Digital SMEs and startups that would like to accelerate their digitally-enabled growth and leverage on already existing components that provide basic capabilities to facilitate the delivery of digital, interoperable, cross-border and cross-domain services and solutions.

This Challenge invites participants to shape a concept for a service or solution that could be integrated in their company business offer. The proposed service or solution concept must be based on one or more of the open and reusable solutions provided by the European Commission.

During the opening at the Web Summit, Dietmar Gattwinkel from the Commission's eGovernment and Trust Unit introduced those SMEs who have already taken advantage of the reusable solutions provided by the Commission.

The presentation for the opening ceremony is available here.

Recognising the importance of SMEs within the European economy, the European Commission is launching this Challenge to SMEs and startups across Europe — to the ones that are willing to innovate and grow their business by taking the lead towards making a digital Europe, the ones who think big, play smart and stand out.

Through this Challenge, the European Commission aims to experiment new ways to engage with SMEs and startups to re-imagine how open and reusable solutions are created and promoted, stimulate awareness and, ultimately, increase their adoption.

The closing date for application is 28 February 2020, 12.00 pm Brussels time, following which applications are no longer possible.

Interested? You can already register to the first Info Session for prospective participants, taking place on 25 November 2019. The second information session will take place on 30 January 2020.

Register

Update to CEF-managed code lists & eInvoicing validation artefacts

The European Commission is happy to announce updates to the eInvoicing code lists and validation artefacts provided as part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) eInvoicing Building Block. As of today (15 November 2019) all updates to CEF code lists (EAS and VATEX) and validation artefacts are in effect.

Through the CEF eInvoicing Building Block, the Commission provides a dedicated Registry of supporting tools and artefacts to implement the European standard on eInvoicing. This Registry provides access to:

• The European standard on eInvoicing (CEN/TC 434 EN16931);
• All code lists used in the standard (incl. EAS and VATEX);
• CIUS (Core invoice Usage Specifications) and Extensions;
• Validation artefacts;

Visit the Registry

The CEF eInvoicing Building Block aims to promote the successful uptake of electronic invoicing in Europe respecting the European standard on electronic invoicing and Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement.

The European standard defines which code lists may be used for each business term that has the data type "code", such as electronic address, VAT number, currency, etc. The European Commission is the managing authority for the VAT exemption reasons (VATEX) and electronic address (EAS) code lists. All other code lists are managed by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN).

The European standard defines rules to check that an invoice complies with the standard. These rules are expressed in technical validation artefacts. You can use these technical artefacts to validate automatically whether an invoice complies with those rules.

The European standard on eInvoicing makes it possible for sellers to send invoices to many customers by using a single eInvoicing format. This addresses the proliferation of different eInvoicing standards in Europe, which hampers cross-border economic activity and slows the wider adoption of eProcurement.

In addition to the Registry, the CEF eInvoicing Building Block provides the following:

• eInvoicing Service Desk
• eInvoicing on-site and remote Trainings
• eInvoicing Conformance Testing

CEF Building Blocks Presented at the Eurocities Knowledge Society Forum

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The EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum (KSF) - with the heading “Disruptive technologies and Citizens Focus” - took place on 28 – 30 October, in Cologne, Germany.

With a rapidly urbanising world, more cities are becoming smarter in responding to citizen needs and reducing their environmental impact. At the same time, new and emerging technologies are the engine for long-term innovative solutions.

The KSF meeting in Cologne was an important opportunity for discussion on the current and future use of disruptive technologies - including the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Building Blocks - in public administrations, their impact, the potential benefits but also related risks, using current pilot projects as evidence.

The “Boosting digital transformation in cities – upcoming digital and innovation funding opportunities” panel started with a short plenary presentation of the main digital and innovation programmes of the European Commission. The European Commission representatives presented the newly proposed Digital Europe programme together with the Horizon Europe and Connecting Europe programmes, and their opportunities for pushing the digital transformation of Europe’s cities.

Following the presentation, two rounds of breakout sessions were organised with representatives of the Commission and the representatives of the member cities.

Participants discuss distruptive technologies 

Caroline Corneanu, IT project manager at DG DIGIT, presented the CEF Building Blocks. These are key standards-based digital infrastructure, which can support digitalisation in different areas, from authentication to procurement or from machine translation to secure data exchange. The basis for the CEF building blocks are interoperability agreements between European Union member states. The aim of the building blocks is thus to ensure interoperability between IT systems so that citizens, businesses and administrations can benefit from seamless digital public services wherever they may be in Europe.

Today, the Building Blocks are not only focusing on helping national governments digitalise their services, but they are also being successfully utilised in smart city initiatives.

The participants were able to ask questions and find out more about the grants, but also about the free core services that CEF provides for the adoption of the Building Blocks.

Visit CEF Digital

CEF TELECOM GRANT BENEFICIARY

Estonia opened up its service portals with CEF

CEF eID and eSignature helped Estonia to expand more than 3,500 services across Europe

The Estonian eID team at RIA. Photo courtesy of RIA.

Quick facts:

• Organisation: Estonian Information System Authority (RIA)
• Challenge: Fulfil eIDAS requirements with regards to cross-border authentication and e-signature interoperability
• Solution: Open Estonia’s service portals by installing standards based CEF solutions
• CEF Building Blocks: eSignature and eID

One solution for all services

Applying for social security benefits, registering a newborn, transferring money, booking a doctor’s appointment, drafting a will, applying to a school and checking your child’s report card. These are all examples of services that in Estonia are securely and reliably accessible through a single electronic solution, implemented in Estonia’s various service portals.

In a nutshell, the solution consists of government provided software, ID cards and card readers that together, enable electronic authentication and electronic signatures. Since the solution is based on common European standards, specifications and tools, it allows more than 3,500 public and private services offered in Estonia to be used online, not only by residents of the country, but by residents of other EU member states, too*. These standards and specifications were implemented with the help of the European Commission.

CEF solutions to open Estonian service portals

The Estonian Information System Authority (RIA) ensures the reliability and convenient services of the Estonian e-government. Its objective is to coordinate and develop the nation’s IT systems, such as the authentication solution, which includes both electronic identification and electronic signatures, used in Estonia’s service portals. Electronic identification allows Estonian citizens, residents and businesses to log-in to different services, while electronic signatures help them to validate, approve and sign various digital content and data. To do so, end-users need to install the software provided by RIA on their laptop, or to use a web service that provides the software as a service.

With the above solution already in place since 2002, the emergence of the eIDAS Regulation meant changes in both the business model and the technical architecture in order to ensure interoperability and access to Estonian services across EU borders. RIA looked for a solution to ensure eIDAS compliance with the least amount of effort and decided to go with the European Commission’s eSignature and eID solutions. They are readily available digital building blocks offered by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme. They are free of charge and provide full compliance with the eIDAS Regulation and related standards and specifications. The CEF building blocks were used as follows:

• The CEF eSignature Digital Signature Software (DSS), an open-source library, was installed as a central signature validation service. It is used to validate signatures made on end-users’ devices with previously existing software developed by RIA.
• CEF eSignature also helped RIA validate PDF signatures (PAdES standard by eIDAS). Before, only XML and ASiC signatures were provided.
• A CEF grant helped to implement the eIDAS node needed to connect Estonian service portals to the European eIDAS network. This component authenticates all EU residents from member states with a notified national eID solution.

After the changes, which took approximately two years, residents of other countries can now access services offered by Estonian authorities and businesses through the eIDAS Node *. The central signature validation service validates all signatures, as is shown below.

From a legislative point of view, Estonian laws only depict the process, not the medium or format. This makes it easy for the country to adapt to new technologies and means of conducting activities.

Estonian specificities

Unlike in many other countries, the ID card is a mandatory document in Estonia. Furthermore, the card features a chip with pre-configured electronic ID and signature components that are enabled by default, without an additional fee.

The DSS provided by the European Commission was configured by the Estonian team to take local regulations into account, which require the use of qualified electronic signatures in public services and the validation of signatures at the time of signing. In addition to checking the timestamp and the certificate revocation information, Estonia also checks the time gap between computer time (claimed time) and the timestamp. If the gap exceeds 15 minutes, the system will prompt the user to contact the service provider, as the validation evidence will be considered corrupted or missing.

The authentication solution is also widely spread in the Estonian private sector, such as banking. Major Estonian banks even use electronic signatures to secure money transfers and to mirror the traditional paper process where payment orders are validated by signatures. Qualified electronic signatures provide an existing solution that perfectly captures all the necessary evidence of users’ identities and their respective actions during an online banking session in a format that is also process and technology neutral.

Mobile phone as card reader

Estonia’s Mobile ID is based on a special SIM-card with an eID chip, which can be ordered from government contracted mobile network operators. It simply turns the mobile phone into a card reader, using the SMS channel to send encrypted messages. The solution is not available as an app, as it was launched already in 2007, before the smart phone era. However, this makes Mobile ID even more secure, reliable and available from all corners of the world, without expensive roaming costs. Estonia has effectively notified the European Commission and Member States of its ID schemes covering Mobile ID, ID card and ID card variants, such the diplomat ID card and residence permit card.

Results and benefits

98 percent of Estonia’s 1.34 million inhabitants have an ID card, and about half of them use their ID card for e-services on a daily basis. This creates about 500,000 authenticated sessions and 620,000 electronic signatures per day, making Estonia a major user of electronic identity and signature services. In October 2019, there were 15 authentications through the eIDAS node to Estonian e-services and 361 authentications via Estonian authentication service to foreign e-services. Furthermore, it has been very easy for Estonians to learn and adopt new services, as they are all based on the same processes.

RIA benefitted from using CEF eID and CEF eSignature in the following ways:

• Achieved eIDAS compliance in approximately half the time and effort
• Extended functionality to PDF signatures
• Access to EU community for further support and maintenance
• Efficiency, security and reliability in cross-border services
• Financial aid, which helped to implement a full-scale solution (CEF eID)

Furthermore, e-residents and residents of other EU member states can now enjoy access to Estonia’s services. In the private sector, it is now easier for Estonian service providers to reach new clientele beyond its borders.

Next steps

For cross-border authentication, RIA will continue to further maintain and support other EU member states’ notified eID schemes. For electronic signatures, a new signing gateway service is in the pipeline. This will make it easier for new e-services to adopt electronic signatures through a simple request to RIA, instead of having to develop their own functionality with integrated libraries.

Based on Estonia’s extensive experience, they also look forward to providing their input in the upcoming renewal of the eIDAS Regulation (910/2014).

*Non-residents can be identified and authenticated to use Estonian e-government services using their national eID scheme, but the availability of the service depends the type of service requested and whether the Estonia government holds data on the person in question. This means, for example, that if a person does not have any vehicles registered in Estonia, then they cannot extract their data about registered vehicles from the e-service offered by the Estonian Road Administration.

The EU Publications Office based its long-term preservation service on international archiving standards

Chosen standards are considered best practice and are supported by the European Commission. They help organisations to save time and resources, increase interoperability and enhance security, while guaranteeing the trustworthiness of a digital archive.

©Adobe Stock

Quick facts

• Project: EUDOR
• Organisation: The Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg
• Challenge: How to preserve electronically EU information for the long term whilst ensuring conformity with applicable legislation?
• Solution:  Implement relevant archiving standards thus benefitting from community-based development
• CEF Building Block: eArchiving

A pioneer in digital archiving

The European Union's Publications Office (OP) implemented their first electronic archiving system already in 1987. This first system, called Arcdon, digitally preserved data using optical disks as storage media to support paper archives. While Arcdon was fairly simple, its creators recognised the value of digital preservation in supporting paper-based archiving systems, which are inherently space-consuming and vulnerable to wear and tear.

Since 1987, applicable legislative requirements have increased, users have become more demanding and technology has advanced. Consequently, Arcdon has been replaced in 1996 by a new system called the European Union DOcument Repository, or EUDOR for short. EUDOR has evolved over the years and in 2015, a public call for tender was published to find a partner for upgrading EUDOR v2 to EUDOR v3. Requirements for the service included, among others, archiving electronically signed PDFs and increasing security to establish a trusted document management system.

Changes were driven by the rise of e-archiving standards and new requirements were triggered in particular by the change of the reference format of the Official Journal, as the PDF format became legally binding (Council Regulation (EU) No 216/2013). Today, the third generation of EUDOR ensures long-term digital preservation of law and publications associated with rich metadata on behalf of all European Institutions. The long-term preservation policy, service and activities are documented in the Publications Office's Digital Preservation Plan.

Standards as deciding factor

The call for tender resulted in a service contract (2016-2022) with Intrasoft International. As a sub-contractor, Keep Solutions provides software development and maintenance. Keep Solutions’s digital archiving solution, RODA, matched well with OP’s technical requirements. Furthermore, RODA’s foundation on open standards and technical specifications was appraised positively. Examples of these standards include ISO 14721 and E-ARK, which are at the core of eArchiving — the digital archiving solution endorsed and offered by the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme.

eArchiving: the European Commission’s archiving solution

eArchiving is a service package complete with sample software, technical specifications, support services and a community. It is based on the global Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model (ISO standard 14721:2012), which is considered the main standard for creating digital archiving solutions. OAIS provides a common ground for understanding digital archiving concepts, strategies, techniques and more. On top of the OAIS, eArchiving defines, for example, technical specifications for:

• data input to archive (Submission Information Package or SIPs),
• long-term preservation of data in archive (Archival Information Package or AIPs), and
• accessing data from archive (Dissemination Information Package or DIPs).

Keep Solutions were involved in defining these technical specifications, as they were a contributing member to E-ARK, the predecessor of eArchiving. Therefore, much of the eArchiving specifications are reflected in RODA, and parts of RODA are included in eArchiving (e.g. RODA repository). Furthermore, RODA has implemented standards supported by eArchiving, such as PREMIS (Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies) for preserving information packages; and METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) for allowing the exchange of data between archives.

Today, the specifications of E-ARK are packaged, promoted and offered for free as CEF eArchiving to ensure that as many European organisations as possible can benefit from them. In line with the principles of open solutions, everyone is free to use them, and all contributions will be fed back to the benefit of everyone else.

Results and benefits

The OP has the mandate to ensure long-term preservation of all official publications published by the European Institutions (Decision 2009/496/EC, EURATOM), and the number of documents that need archiving is ever growing. As of August 2019, EUDOR v3 stores over 90 million files with texts dating back to 1951 – years before the European Commission existed. However, the European Coal and Steel Community was established in 1952, and the treaty was signed the year before. Within the 90 million files, nearly one million are unique publications that are provided in different European languages.

The following points outline how eArchiving is helping the OP achieve its objectives in digital archiving:

• Save time and resources by not having to reinvent the wheel.
• Open standards prevent vendor lock-in and facilitate future migrations, which are needed in order to preserve the content and avoid format or support obsolescence.
• Establishes a common language to communicate within the archival community.
• Having a standards-based solution enhances interoperability.
• Standards invoke trust and credibility and are thus a good basis for a trustworthy archival repository.
• Facilitates auditing and certification, which is particularly important for the OP, as it is aiming to obtain the ISO 16363 certificate for EUDOR.

EUDOR architectural set-up

Archiving is often considered a very easy, straightforward task. Like dropping a file into folder. This is not the case. Data comes in diverse formats alongside complex metadata, and both need to be transferred and migrated across formats and technologies to stand the test of time. The illustration below shows how OP solved these challenges.

The general document archiving flow with EUDOR v3

NewCERES is a pre-processing and workflow system with data reception and dispatch functionalities. It validates and prepares data to be submitted to CELLAR for dissemination and to EUDOR v3 for archiving. CELLAR is a digital dissemination repository. It is accessed by EUR-Lex and the Publications Office’s portal for searching and viewing. EUDOR v3 receives the SIP packages and transforms them into AIPs. This converts data into the internal format of the archive in order to enable long-term preservation. EUDOR v3 currently stores data in two 175 TB data centres, each connected to the OP via a private line. Some of the formats supported are TIFF, XML and PDF.

Next steps

Next, OP aims to get EUDOR ISO 16363 certified, which is a recognition for trustworthy digital repositories. OP is also looking into new collections to archive, such as tender notices and websites. Work will continue with the same standards, but specifications will be amended as needs evolve. New technologies, such as blockchain and cloud storage, are of interest, too.