Wednesday 26th June, 2013

The European Commission has proposed a draft directive on e-invoicing in public procurement, accompanied by a communication setting out its vision for end-to-end e-procurement. E-invoicing is an important step towards paperless public administration (e-government) in Europe – one of the priorities of the Digital Agenda - and offers the potential for significant economic as well as environmental benefits.

The Commission estimates that the adoption of e-invoicing in public procurement across the EU could generate savings of up to €2.3 billion.

Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Michel Barnier said: "Ensuring that public administrations in the EU are modern and efficient is a priority for the European Commission. Switching to e-procurement, and particularly to e-invoicing, can bring significant savings and make life easier both for the governments and for the thousands of businesses active in the Internal Market. Switching from paper to fully automated invoicing can cut the costs of receiving an invoice from 30-50 euro to 1 euro. These are good and useful savings in the current economic climate. As the largest spender in the EU, the public sector should play a leading role in stimulating its uptake."

Key elements of the initiatives:

E-invoicing

The draft directive on electronic invoicing in public procurement proposes the establishment of a European e-invoicing standard which is expected to improve interoperability between different, mainly national, e-invoicing systems.

It aims to eliminate legal uncertainty, excessive complexity, and additional operating costs for economic operators who currently have to use different electronic invoices across the Member States. It will also help boost the uptake of e-invoicing in Europe which remains very low, accounting for only 4-15% of all invoices exchanged.

End-to-end procurement

The Communication on end-to-end e-procurement places the draft Directive on e-invoicing in public procurement in a broader context and presents the Commission’s vision on the digitisation of the public procurement process. It identifies the current state of play in the implementation of e-procurement and e-invoicing across the EU, and sets out the areas in which actions should be taken to achieve the transition towards end-to-end e-procurement:

• Making e-invoicing the rule rather than the exception in public procurement;
• Taking forward standardisation work;
• Devising national strategies for end-to-end e-procurement;
• Sharing best practice.

The Communication will serve as a basis for possible future initiatives on further digitisation of the public procurement process.