Wednesday 17th September, 2014

The European Commission (EC) Directive on e-invoicing in the public sector requires a European standard to remove cross border barriers to interoperability.

In April 2014, the EU Directive on electronic invoicing in public procurement was approved by the European Council, which applies only to e-invoices issued by authorised economic operators.

The Directive clarifies that the future standard will use and build on existing initiatives, such as the CEN Workshop on Business Interoperability Interfaces in Europe (CEN WS/BII), PEPPOL and other international standardisation organisations.

To help reach the Directive’s main objective, the EC is preparing a request to European Standardisation Organisations to develop a semantic data model (a structured set of terms and their meanings that specify the “core elements” of an electronic invoice), as a "European e-Invoicing standard".

OpenPEPPOL and CEN BII representatives will help developed the EC finalised the European e-invoicing standard, expected to be completed by May 2017.

Member States shall adopt the Directive by November 2018. Public and private organisations interested in implementing e-invoicing using European standards can already start benefiting from the work carried out by PEPPOL to ensure compliance and interoperability.