Wednesday 4th September, 2013

The European Union (EU) hopes to take another step towards digitizing public procurement process with e-invoicing during the current presidency of Lithuania which runs until the end of 2013.

According to the estimates by the European Commission (EC), the expenditure of the public sector amounts to some 19% of the EU GDP, while the value of public procurement totals approximately EUR 420 billion per year.

The EC also estimates that the adoption of e-invoicing in public procurement across the EU could generate savings of funds allocated for public procurement of up to €2.3 billion. Currently, the uptake of e-invoicing across Europe is very low, accounting for only 4–15% of all invoices.

In June this year, the EC proposed a draft directive setting out its vision on e-invoicing in public procurement.

Europe still is failing to make a full use of opportunities made available by electronic public procurement. Although most Member States provide an environment for electronic publication of procurement, supply of tender conditions and offers of suppliers; however, these opportunities are still not fully used in practice.

During an Informal EU Competitiveness Council Meeting in Vilnius, Lithuanian on 22-23 July 2013, the Ministers of Internal Market and Industry discussed the importance of the transition towards end-to-end e-procurement, including e-invoicing, for the modernisation of the public administration sector.

Lithuania’s vice minister of the economy, Rasa Noreikienė said: "E-invoicing in public procurement should improve the functioning of the internal market, to reduce the obstacles of entering the market, especially for small and medium sized companies, and solve the problem of the compatibility of different e-invoicing systems in various member states. We hope that the costs for suppliers will also be reduced, since there will be no need to adjust technical equipment for the different e-invoicing standards in member states. This will facilitate settlements in public procurement, they will become faster and less costly."

In Lithuania, the volume of e-procurement accounts for over 80% of all public procurements published.