Exciting news from eDelivery ecosystems in 2024

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Stay informed with the latest developments in eDelivery. Learn about specification updates, the market of conformant solutions, the digital ecosystems powered by eDelivery, and gain insights into monitoring and data spacesVarious eDelivery-based ecosystems have moved forward with their implementations. Learn more about the use of the Building Block in Peppol, EMSWe, EHDS, OOTS and eFTI in this overview article.

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The European Commission's eDelivery Building Block, a key enabler of secure digital data exchange across the EU, continues to evolve. This article explores the status of the next-generation eDelivery 2.0 specifications, their adoption in digital ecosystems, as well as improvements to the eDelivery conformance testing.

New eDelivery digital ecosystems

eDelivery is experiencing increasing adoption across various EU digital ecosystems. Three of them have transitioned to production this year:

For more on the new eDelivery digital ecosystems in production, see New eDelivery-based ecosystems live in the first half of 2024.

Among new ecosystems evaluating eDelivery for potential future use, we note:

Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) is in the early stages of planning ATHINA, a system for collecting and analysing health threat data. While eDelivery is under consideration, a final decision on its inclusion has not yet been made.
Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) system, led by DG TAXUD like ICS2 and CESOP, is assessing the use of eDelivery via its TAPAS service for secure communication with the CBAM central platform. CBAM aims to address carbon emissions transparency for goods imported into the EU.

We invite you to follow our website for further updates on these and other potential eDelivery digital ecosystems.

eDelivery monitoring

We are committed to continuous monitoring and improvement of eDelivery. We track key metrics such as ecosystem adoption, Access Points, exchanged messages and interconnected organisations through a public dashboard. This data informs ongoing development efforts and ensures eDelivery remains a relevant and effective solution for secure digital data exchange across Europe.

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Our monitoring dashboard offers a comprehensive view of eDelivery's adoption and impact. It serves as a valuable resource for stakeholders and the public to understand the Building Block's progress and potential.

Please note that we monitor eDelivery digital ecosystems through our own research. There is no formal qualification process for inclusion; digital ecosystems are added as they are discovered or reported. We encourage European and national authorities to share information about existing eDelivery implementations to enhance monitoring and promote broader adoption.

To foster knowledge sharing, we are gathering registrations for a webinar in January. This will be an opportunity to showcase eDelivery use cases.

eDelivery in data spaces

eDelivery plays a role in the EU's Common European Data Spaces initiative, ensuring secure and interoperable data exchange across various domains. It is listed in the Data Spaces Support Centre's blueprint for data space creation and contributes to building a future-proof, scalable data ecosystem. eDelivery is being integrated into the following data spaces:

Once Only Technical System (OOTS). This first European data space using eDelivery is live since December 2023.
HealthData@EU. This pilot is currently undergoing testing for national contact point data exchange with eDelivery being used for communication between national points and central EU services.
European Mobility Data Space (EMDS). Currently under discussion for potential implementation, building on existing eDelivery-powered ecosystems in the mobility sector.

Market of conformant solutions

In parallel with the eDelivery 2.0 specification development, the eDelivery team has been diligently working on improvements to the conformance testing service. This service guarantees that eDelivery-conformant solutions offered by vendors adhere to the eDelivery specifications.

The migration from the Minder platform to the Interoperability Test Bed (ITB) for AS4 conformance testing in 2023 ensured continued testing with the same set of tests. With a new test suite scheduled for July 2024, the new platform will be ready to support testing for optional eDelivery profile enhancements like the Pull Feature, Dynamic Sender and Dynamic Receiver, which was not available until now. Further improvements to strengthen Common Profile testing are planned for later this year. These upgrades aim to ensure robust, standardised testing for all eDelivery-conformant solutions.

To improve user experience and transparency, the eDelivery team has also redesigned the listing of eDelivery-conformant solutions. The new presentation features a new design that simplifies information access and highlights the level of confidence users can have in the conformance of specific services and products. For more information on what the new view brings to both software vendors and users, see New listing of eDelivery AS4 conformant solutions.

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital transformation, the eDelivery team would like to review 2024 when it comes to eDelivery-based ecosystems. This year brought three new digital ecosystems live, increasing the number of active eDelivery ecosystems to 36. Almost one third of them are currently facilitated by the EC corporate service (EU Send), which noted a 27% increased growth of connected Access Points just in the first half of the year. Besides the growth, various eDelivery ecosystems achieved important milestones this year. This article sheds light on recent developments in their implementations relevant to the eDelivery community. Peppol (Pan-European Public Procurement On-line), EMSWe (European Maritime Single Window environment), EHDS (European Health Data Space), OOTS (Once Only Technical System) and eFTI (electronic Freight Transport Information) exchange environment – all moved big steps forward in 2024. Let’s celebrate their success and learn about their journeys to an advanced future of digital data exchange across Europe.

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Peppol

The Peppol Network is one of the largest and oldest eDelivery networks facilitating the exchange of electronic business documents in B2B and B2G environments in 65 countries. Managed by OpenPeppol, a non-profit international Association, as its governaning entity, Peppol acts as a global interoperability ecosystem with its own governance, standards and operations. This eDelivery network is based on standardised communication among Access Points, operated by commercial service Providers enabling and ensuring seamless connectivity and data exchange between buyers and sellers that use Peppol Service Providers.

Peppol logistics domain

As of 2024 the Peppol four-corner model environment, where data is exchanged between access points operated by commercial service providers, can be used for exchanging logistics data in addition to invoicing and ordering. This new service domain addresses the complexity of logistics, which involves multiple actors, industries and business processes, with a standardised approach that can be adopted globally and regionally to improve visibility and transparency in the supply chain.

Transition to federated SML

Currently Peppol relies on the European Commission’s Service Metadata Locator (SML) service. With increasing usage, Peppol is working with DIGIT to transition from a centralised to a federated SML. The evolving architecture have been discussing during eInvoicing and eProcurement Conference in May 2024, and eDelivery presentation can is available here.

Peppol ViDA Pilot

Peppol ViDA pilot demonstrates how the Peppol eInvoice specifications and the Peppol Network can meet the expectations of the Digital Reporting Requirements (DRR) outlined in the VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) directive, which mandates the use of electronic invoicing and VAT reporting for cross-border transactions within the EU. In the ViDA pilot Peppol together with tax administrations, service providers and businesses are piloting a five-corner model to include regulatory reporting (enabling tax and other types of reporting through the network).

Learn about eDelivery's presentation at the Peppol eInvoicing and eProcurement Conference here and Peppol's presentation in the eDelivery Informal Cooperation Network meeting here.

EMSWe

EMSWe – The European Maritime Single Window environment integrates national reporting systems into a coherent, interoperable framework and streamlines and harmonises the reporting obligations for ships arriving at and departing from EU ports. Established by Regulation (EU) 2019/1239 the EMSWe will apply from August 15, 2025 and is a game changer for ship operators, and all national authorities involved in a port call. EMSWe ensures that the data is provided in the same way across the EU and only needs to be provided once. Ship operators will be able to send their data to a Member State’s (MS) Maritime National Single Window (MNSW) using harmonised interfaces, notably the Reporting Interface Module (RIM) based on eDelivery. The EMSWe is in the late stages of development and Member States are starting the deployment phase.

EMSWe has been presented to both eDelivery Interoperability Forum and Informal Cooperation Network as a project to keep an eye on.

Reuse of eDelivery

Decentralised network of 22 MNSWs across maritime MS integrates solutions such as Domibus and uses the four-corner model to enhance interoperability, security and efficiency. eDelivery components such as the Service Metadata Locator (SML) and Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) are used to manage the discovery and addressing of endpoints within the EMSWe network.

RIM

The technical infrastructure – RIM – reuses eDelivery to ensure secure data exchange and is a mandatory component to be integrated by MS in their MNSW. RIM acts as an AS4 access point and allows ship operators to submit formalities to Member States using AS4 protocol. One can learn more about it here. The testing of RIM with MS has started since 2024 and many MS plan to be ready for the 2025 go-live date.

EHDS

The European Health Data Space (EHDS) – a key pillar of European Health Union is the first sectorial data space enabling the benefits of primary (MyHealth@EU) and secondary (HealthData@EU) health data exchange. eDelivery reuse for EHDS has been piloted in the latest HealthData@EU pilot and is reused in the HealthData@EU Central Platform. The TEHDAS2 – the Second Joint Action Towards the European Health Data Space continues the work for EHDS by developing concrete guidelines and technical specifications for the data space.

HealthData@EU Central Platform

The HealthData@EU Central Platform is a pivotal digital system developed by the European Commission to implement the requirements of the upcoming EHDS Regulation. This platform contains the EU Dataset Catalogue, which gathers metadata from European Institutions, Member States, third countries and research organisations. The machine-to-machine connection between the Central Platform and Contact Points is ensured by eDelivery AS4 standard implementation. The infrastructure, developed and tested during the EHDS Pilot project, reuses eDelivery AS4. Release 2 of HealthData@EU Central Platform with new features has been presented in October 2024 to the community. Future updates are planned and will be rolled out in cooperation with EHDS key stakeholders.

OOTS

The Once Only Technical System (OOTS) is an initiative under the Single Digital Gateway Regulation (SDGR). The OOTS lets EU public authorities securely exchange official documents and data – at the request of citizens and businesses – as part of cross-border administrative procedures, e.g., when registering an address or vehicle when moving abroad. This is part of a wider move to a “search-free” administrative model of automated data-exchange, as opposed to document-exchange.

The OOTS is the first EU-wide data space and a large-scale example of cross-border infrastructure reducing the administrative burden on Europe’s citizens and businesses. eDelivery is crucial to the OOTS, providing the technology for secure data exchange between public authorities and central services. Read here about how the OOTS and eDelivery put evidence sharing at the heart of EU interoperability.

Intermediary platform

The OOTS regulation also defines the concept of a so-called intermediary platform. An intermediary platform supports both evidence requesters or evidence providers and enables the automated exchange of documents and data between national authorities from pre-existing eGovernment procedure portals, national registers and EU-wide systems. An intermediary platform that supports evidence providers can receive requests and send responses as eDelivery messages and facilitates connection and user re-direction services to a different non-eDelivery interface. Specific instances of Intermediary Platforms have been developed for the education and vehicle domains.

OOTS Projectathons

To advance the implementation of the OOTS, the Commission regularly organises OOTS Projectathons. These are large-scale testing events for different systems to connect and perform marathons of peer-to-peer interoperability and compliance tests in a structured environment. The last Projectathon focused on four domains – vehicle registries, business-related procedures, population domain and education. More than 400 tests have been completed, including higher quality transactions than at previousProjectathons. In total, 288 Member States experts participated to achieve this success (on-site and online).

eFTI

The electronic Freight Transport Information (eFTI) exchange environment comes in place to support all EU Member States to accept and process freight transport information from economic operators. The recent achievements in the eFTI initiative include the adoption of the Implementing Act on common procedures and rules for accessing and processing eFTI data by competent authorities, and the Delegated Act on the eFTI common data set and eFTI data subsets. These acts provide the technical specifications and implementation guidelines necessary for the successful deployment of the eFTI exchange environment. Learn more about eDelivery’s role in eFTI and its development hereFurthermore, the eDelivery team has started sharing AS4 user needs with the community of conformant solutions vendors. This is another positive move forward as we strive for greater transparency.