EN    EN EN 
EN    EN  EUROPEAN COMMISSION 
Brussels, 18.10.2010 
SEC(2010) 1214 final 
  
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
EVALUATION of the 2004 ACTIO N PLAN FOR ELECTRONIC PUBLIC 
PROCUREMENT  
  
Accompanying document to the 
  
Green Paper on expanding the us e of e-Procurement in the EU 
EN 2   EN TABLE OF CONTENTS 
1. Executive Summary ..................................................................................................... 6 
2. Introduction................................................................................................................ 15 
2.1. Purpose of this report ................................................................................................. 16 2.2. What is "e-Procurement"?.......................................................................................... 16 2.3. Why do e-Procurement?............................................................................................. 18 3. Legal and policy background..................................................................................... 18 3.1. E-Procurement: The situation in 2004 ....................................................................... 18 3.2. The role of the EU in promoting e-Procurement ....................................................... 19 3.3. The Public Procurement Directives ........................................................................... 20 3.4. The 2004 Action Plan................................................................................................. 21 3.4.1. Content of the Action Plan......................................................................................... 22 3.4.2. Strategic approach of the Action Plan........................................................................ 23 4. Evaluation Methodology............................................................................................ 24 4.1. Scope and limitations of the evaluation ..................................................................... 24 4.2. Our approach.............................................................................................................. 24 
4.3. Data sources .............................................................................................................. . 26 
4.4. Intervention logic a nd evaluation questions............................................................... 27 
5. State of Play ............................................................................................................... 31 
5.1. Introduction.............................................................................................................. .. 31 
5.2. How have countries implemented the po ssibilities offered by the 2004 Directives? 31 
5.2.1. E-Auctions.............................................................................................................. .... 32 
5.2.2. Framework agreements .............................................................................................. 33 5.2.3. Buyer profiles.......................................................................................................... ... 33 
5.2.4. DPS ..................................................................................................................... ....... 34 
5.2.5. E-Signatures ............................................................................................................ ... 35 
5.2.6. Transposition: time taken and approaches adopted ................................................... 35 
5.3. What e-Procurement strategi es have been adopted?.................................................. 35 
5.3.1. National level approaches .......................................................................................... 35 5.3.2. Centralisation .......................................................................................................... ... 37 
EN 3   EN 5.3.3. Simplification.......................................................................................................... ... 38 
5.3.4. Mandatory requirements ............................................................................................ 39 5.4. What infrastructure ha s been put in place? ................................................................ 39 
5.4.1. Different types of infr astructure identified ................................................................ 39 
5.4.2. Overview of existing infrastructure ........................................................................... 41 5.4.3. Straight through e-Procurement: pre-award and post-award ..................................... 43 5.5. Resultant use of e-Procurement ................................................................................. 45 5.6. Assessment of the availability and us e of specific e-Procurement tools ................... 47 
5.6.1. E-Catalogues ............................................................................................................ .. 47 
5.6.2. Certificates and attestations........................................................................................ 48 5.6.3. E-Signatures ............................................................................................................ ... 49 
5.6.4. Framework agreements .............................................................................................. 49 5.6.5. DPS ..................................................................................................................... ....... 50 
5.6.6. Buyer profiles.......................................................................................................... ... 50 
5.7. Technical approaches present in e-Procurement systems .......................................... 50 5.7.1. Authentication.......................................................................................................... .. 51 
5.7.2. Standardisation......................................................................................................... .. 51 
5.8. Savings ................................................................................................................... .... 51 
5.9. Comparison with the experiences  of international partners....................................... 53 
5.10. Summary – where are we today? ............................................................................... 54 6. How has the Action Plan Contri buted to this Progress? ............................................ 55 
6.1. Ensure a well functioning Internal Mark et in electronic public procurement ........... 56 
6.1.1. Implementing the legal framework correctly and on time – measures and results.... 56 6.1.2. Completing the legal framework by the a ppropriate basic tools – measures and 
results ........................................................................................................................ . 59 
6.1.3. Removing / preventing barriers in ca rrying public procurement procedures 
electronically – measures and results......................................................................... 62 
6.1.4. Detecting and addressing interoperability problems over time – measures and results
............................................................................................................................... ..... 66 
6.1.5. Wider impacts of the measures under Objective 1..................................................... 68 6.2. Achieve greater efficiency in procurem ent, improve governance and competitiveness
............................................................................................................................... ..... 69 
EN 4   EN 6.2.1. Increasing the efficiency of public  procurement and improving governance – 
measures and results................................................................................................... 70 
6.2.2. Increasing the competitiveness of public  procurement markets across the EU – 
measures and results................................................................................................... 73 
6.2.3. Wider impacts of the measures under Objective 2..................................................... 76 6.3. Work towards an international framework for electronic public procurement.......... 76 6.3.1. Results of these measures........................................................................................... 77 6.3.2. Wider impacts of the measures under Objective 3..................................................... 78 6.4. Other issues raised in the Action Plan........................................................................ 78 
6.5. Have the objectives of the Action Plan been achieved? ............................................ 79 6.5.1. Do we have a well functioning Internal Ma rket in electronic p ublic procurement?.. 79 
6.5.2. Have we achieved greater efficiency in procurement, improve governance and 
competitiveness? ........................................................................................................ 79 
6.5.3. Have we progressed towards an intern ational framework fo r electronic public 
procurement?.............................................................................................................. 80 
7. Conclusions................................................................................................................ 8 1 
7.1. Answers to the evaluation questions.......................................................................... 81 7.1.1. To what extent have public procurem ent procedures been "computerised"? ............ 81 
7.1.2. To what extent did the EU Action Plan fo r e-Procurement identif y the right priorities 
and strategy? To what extent  has it been implemented?............................................ 82 
7.1.3. How relevant, efficient and effective has th e Action Plan been in achieving or at least 
nearing the stated objectives of effici ent and unhindered cross-border e-Procurement 
in the EU?................................................................................................................... 86  
7.2. What are the remaining issues to be addressed? ........................................................ 86 7.3. Next steps................................................................................................................ ... 88 
7.4. Future Monitoring and Evaluation............................................................................. 88 
ANNEX I - Glossary............................................................................................................. ... 91 
ANNEX II - Bibliography...................................................................................................... 10 2 
ANNEX IV – Measures under the Action Plan and current status ........................................ 122 ANNEX V– Table of public procurement legislation............................................................ 129 ANNEX VI - Intervention logics ........................................................................................... 131 
EN 5   EN ANNEX VII – List of portals reviewed ................................................................................. 135 
ANNEX VIII – Costs for e-Procurement............................................................................... 152 ANNEX IX– Phases or tools made manda tory in certain Member States............................. 159 
EN 6   EN 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY  
Introduction 
This evaluation assesses the advances made in  the adoption of e-Procurement since 2004 and 
the contribution of the Commission's 2004 "Acti on Plan for the implementation of the legal 
framework for electronic public procurement" to that progress. It also  identifies outstanding 
challenges and issues which need to be resolved. The review is timely - there is  still a window 
of opportunity to influence de velopment and integration with in the e-Procurement market, 
which has not yet reached a criti cal mass. However, the market is evolving, different national 
solutions are being developed and the window will not remain open for long.  
EU procurement legislation has helped to embe d a culture of professi onal and value-driven 
procurement, bringing greater transparency to European markets for public contracts. In 2009 
over 150,000 contracts were advertis ed EU-wide with an  estimated value of  around 3% of EU 
GDP. Directives 2004/18/EC and 2004/17/EC were  intended to modernise and simplify 
public procurement procedures and recognised the on-going transition within Member States 
to e-Government in general. For the first tim e it was possible to use electronic means and new 
modern purchasing techniques. To  support and facilitate  this introduction of e-Procurement, 
the Commission adopted the Action Plan for e-Procurement in December 2004. 
E-Procurement refers to the use of electroni c communications and tran saction processing by 
government institutions and other public sect or organisations when buying supplies and 
services or tendering public works. However, there is much more at stake than the mere 
changeover from paper-based procurement syst ems to ones using electronic communications. 
E-Procurement has the potential to yield im portant improvements in the efficiency of 
individual purchases, the overa ll administration of public proc urement and the functioning of 
the markets for government contracts.  
What is e-Procurement? Why is it important? 
Public procurement consists of eight phases – publication of tender notices, access to tender 
documents, submission of tenders, evaluation,  award, ordering, invoicing and payment. 
Although each of these phases has a certain role to play in the fu ll e-Procurement process, it is 
not always necessary or even appropriate to provide all thes e phases electronically e.g. e-
Evaluation of contracts requiring predominantly  qualitative assessments. Some processes e.g. 
invoicing and payment are not procurement-spec ific and solutions developed for the wider 
(B2B) market can be put to wo rk in e-Procurement. Others call for customised solutions; e-
Submission, e-Evaluation and e-Ordering pose the greatest challenges, requiring an agreed set 
of protocols and standards to organise the ex change of complex docum ents and interactions 
between public purchasers and suppliers  
This evaluation assumes that the minimum re quirement for a system to be defined as 
providing e-Procurement is the electronic prov ision of the publicatio n of tender notices, 
access to tender documents and submission of tenders. 
The Commission believes that th e wider use of e-Procuremen t could deliver significant 
benefits. E-Procurement has the potential to  streamline and accelerate public purchasing, 
benefiting both public purchasers and suppliers along the way. It could l ead to more efficient 
procurement administration resulting in cost  and time savings. When coupled with the 
EN 7   EN development of centralised purchasing bodies, e-Procurem ent could provide a way to 
optimise these efficiencies further, integr ating resource-consuming support functions and 
delivering savings due to economies of scale. By automating and strengthening the flow of 
information about individual tender opportun ities, e-Procurement should reach a wider 
audience and provide greater pub licity, which could lead to increased participation by 
economic operators and as a consequence, incr eased competition. E-Procurement could also 
promote cross-border procurement, not just thro ugh greater publicity of c ontracts, but also by 
enabling a certain degree of language indepe ndence (through the use of e-Catalogues for 
example) and standardising certain practices. Eq ually, e-Procurement presents an opportunity 
to introduce more rigour w ithin procurement systems, providing ways to apply more 
objectivity in selecting suppliers  and support better governance.  
Ultimately, this should all lead to better value for money for the taxpayer, which in the current 
financial climate could be very  welcome, maximising the potent ial of constrained resources. 
E-Procurement systems have already proved usef ul in speeding up the expenditure of public 
procurement budgets. 
What role has the EU played to date in promoting e-Procurement?  
The Commission's 2004 Action Plan provided a ro admap, establishing a strategy designed to 
accelerate the adoption of e-Procurement whils t safe-guarding the core principles and 
provisions of existing EU procurement legisl ation and wider Treaty principles. It was 
intended to encourage the deve lopment and use of convergen t, accessible, secure but 
commercially viable solutions and disseminate examples of best-practice. Action was also 
required to stimulate and orientat e the work of the first movers  in the field, who had already 
introduced e-Procurement elements in their legi slation or practices, or set up e-Procurement 
systems. The policy vision underpinning the Acti on Plan was very ambitious - to create a 
situation where "… any business in Eur ope with a PC and an in ternet connection can 
participate in a public purchase conducted electronically."1 
The Action Plan was organised around three main objectives: 
(1) Ensure a well functioning Internal Ma rket in electronic public procurement;  
(2) Achieve greater efficiency in procurement, improve governance and 
competitiveness;  
(3) Work towards an international framework for electronic public procurement. EU policy was designed to play a complementar y role in support of national or regional 
efforts to put procurement on an electronic footin g. It recognised the need to take into account 
an EU level dimension, without which the sw itch-over could be hampered and resources 
could be wasted as the wheel was constantly  re-invented. A total of 31 measures were 
identified, directed at the Co mmission, Member States, standard isation bodies and the Public 
Procurement Network. 
                                                
 
1 Page 10 of the Extended Impact Assessment COM 2004(841), annexed to the Action Plan 
Communication. 
EN 8   EN Approach to this evaluation 
Within the Action Plan, the Commission was tasked, by the end of 2007, to start to " review 
and report on the results achieved  and to propose, if need be, […] corrective action or 
additional measures "2.  
The evaluation therefore focuses on pulling together  a picture of the current state of play and 
identifying what has changed. Given the fairly  short reference period and the absence of 
detailed, consistent EU-wide data, it has proved difficult to attempt a definitive evaluation at 
this stage. Nonetheless, the evaluation tries to identify where it is reasonable to imply that the 
Action Plan has influenced any change and to assess how far it has progressed towards 
achieving its specified objectives. Ultimately, by responding to the three evaluation questions 
(see later), the report judges the progress made against the expectations of 2004 and the 
contribution of the Action Plan to this process. It also identifies issues requiring further attention.  
To assist in this process, two external pieces  of work were commi ssioned and provide much 
of the evidence presented
3. Information has also been gather ed from practical experience and 
developments, including: visiting and reviewin g e-Procurement websites and portals; case 
studies published (particularly on the e-Practice website); meetings and discussions of the e-
Procurement Working Group; and the many conferences and seminars organised by 
practitioners and associations.  
The state of play – availability and us e of e-Procurement in Europe today 
Approaches adopted:  The 2004 Action Plan permitted authorities to develop solutions and 
introduce e-Procurement, in the way best suited to them, subject to compliance with the legal 
framework and guidance provided. The resultant  kaleidoscope of approaches and results 
reflects this flexibility. Many Member States  adopted national acti on plans although fewer 
countries appear to have plans/a clear strate gy covering the future roll out and use of e-
Procurement. Although no examples of plans di rected at national buye rs were found, Ireland, 
France, Scotland and Italy did develop plan s specifically targeted at improving SME 
participation in e-Procurement and report some  success. There is some evidence that many 
SMEs find e-Procurement solutions benefici al saving them time and money and providing 
access to a larger pool of opportunities.  
Whilst some Member States leave it up to cont racting authorities to decide whether to use 
electronic means or not, others have introduced or plan to in troduce mandatory requirements. 
For example, Portugal has made e-Procuremen t mandatory for all pre-award phases; other 
countries have (or will have) mandatory e-No tification (BE, CY, NL ) or e-Invoicing (SE, 
DK). Some countries oblige certai n levels of government to use e-Procurement e.g. in Austria 
federal authorities must use electronic framew ork agreements when purchasing specific goods 
and services. Some countries tend towards ce ntralisation of procur ement and the use of 
Central Purchasing Bodies (which often make extensive use of electronic methods) whilst 
others have a more decentralised approach. Some systems are run by public agencies, while 
                                                 
2 Page 10 of the Action plan for the implementation of the legal framework for electronic public 
procurement 
3 The resultant study published alongside this evaluation is "Study on the evaluation of the Action Plan 
for the implementation of the legal framework for electronic procurement" by Siemens-time.lex. 
EN 9   EN others are provided by private sector companies; contracting authorities then pay on a flat-rate 
or per-use basis.  
Availability of technical solutions:  E-procurement is now possible in practice – not just in 
theory. The technology exists and is being used in several countri es to permit all the 
procurement phases to be completed on-line . However, technology has not provided the 
expected (high tech) solutions to all procedural  steps. In some cases, progress has resulted 
from a more pragmatic approach – in the fo rm of practical 'workarounds' involving less 
technically demanding solutions or combining on/off-line communication e.g. the approaches 
adopted to the provision of evidentiary documents  for exclusion and selection criteria; the use 
of user name and password solutio ns to authenticate a bidder. Such solutions are valid – they 
simply provide alternative ways  to reach the end result. Cert ain limits to "straight through e-
Procurement" have been identified e.g. difficu lties in using automated evaluation approaches 
to complex purchases; absence of a recogni sed EU-wide time-stamping system. Although 
some progress has been made towards devel oping standards for e-Invoicing and e-Ordering 
there are in general still too many standards rela ting to e-Procurement and their content is too 
broad. Approaches to authenti cation issues vary widely.  
Investment in and availability  of e-Procurement capacity:  E-procurement is beginning to 
make its presence felt in Europe. The success of  a number of platforms demonstrates the 
business case. Today systems offering some leve l of functionality exist in 30 of the 32 
countries (26 Member States),  although, the services provided vary quite markedly, both in 
terms of the number of phases/tools supported a nd in the level of soph istication of the ICT 
solutions adopted. In 25 of the 32 countries co nsidered (24 Member States) there are systems 
capable of e-Submission and hence fulfil the definition of e-Procurement used for this 
evaluation. 18 countries (17 Member  States) offer the full pre-aw ard phases to some degree. 
A number of successful systems have adopt ed an e-Procurement model provided by 3rd parties 
over a network, often offering their services to  several organisations at the same time.  
Actual use of e-Procurement:  Actual use of e-Procurement is difficult to measure, but is 
estimated to be much lower than might be inferred from the infrastructure which has been put in place. The EU average figure is estimated to be  less than 5% of total value, other than in 
Portugal, where the mandatory approach results in nearly 100% use of e-Procurement. France 
and Italy, first mover countries in e-Proc urement, estimate that only 4% and 2.5% 
respectively of their total procurement is conduc ted electronically. Uptake  is likely to increase 
as experience with e-Procurem ent grows – many systems are st ill fairly new and there are 
signs that momentum is building in the e-Pr ocurement market. Wider anecdotal evidence 
suggests that many contracti ng authorities and ec onomic operators who have made the 
switch-over to e-Procurement would not contempl ate a return to paper based procedures.  
Good progress has been made in the simpler e-Notification and e-A ccess phases which only 
require a one-way flow of information. This may also be due to the ince ntives within the 2004 
Directives, permitting the reduction of deadlines when these phases are provided via electronic means. There is now a single, accepted and well used system for the publication of 
above threshold notices  across the EU (Tenders Electron ic Daily or TED), supported by 
compatible infrastructure at national level. In  2009 just over 90% of forms sent to TED were 
received electronically and in  a structured format. The electronic publication of notices for 
below threshold procurement has also advanced at  national or regional level. Although figures 
are not available for e-Access it is also expected that its use is fairly high. This success tails 
off as the two-way communication phases ar e entered and more complex technical 
requirements are encountered.  
EN 10   EN Cross-border accessibility of e-Procurement systems:  Whilst there may be some grounds to 
believe that there is a certain degree of consistency in relation to legal compliance, technologically there is little doubt that within the EU diffe rent systems have been developed 
to different requirements and standards with the resultant negative impacts on authentication and interoperability between systems. Exampl es of functioning inte roperability between 
systems are limited and mainly rely on solutio ns being found to integrate support for non-
national solutions which meet the applicable nationa l standards.  
In today's market, economic operators wish ing to participate in on-line procurement 
procedures in other Member States are faced  with a range of pr actical, technical and 
administrative obstacles. National/regional e- Procurement procedures are designed by 
reference to local administrative or technical practices which may diff er significantly. As a 
result, little concrete progress has been made  towards unhindered, cr oss-border electronic 
procurement.  
Some significant success has been achieved in areas where a common EU-level infrastructure 
has been set up – TED has help ed make the use of e-notifi cation wide-spread in the EU. 
Several actions are on-going which may impr ove the cross-border accessibility of e-
Procurement. 
Commission financed and steered actions to support e-Procurement: 
PEPPOL : a joint project between the European Commission and several EU public-sector 
organisations, PEPPOL is a major cross-border project intended to pr ovide large-scale, 
standards-based IT infrastructu re and services to set up and run on-line pan-European public 
procurement operations.  
Open e-PRIOR : the European Commission has developed and deployed e-PRIOR to allow 
the exchange of structured e-Catalogues, e-Ordering and e- Invoicing documents between the 
Commission and its suppliers. Open e-PRIOR publicly provides this solution in a re-usable 
open-source format. 
E-CERTIS : e-CERTIS is a free, on-line information tool which will provide details of the 
different certificates and attest ations frequently requested in  procurement procedures across 
the 27 Member States, Candidate and EEA count ries. It will help interested parties to 
understand what information is being reques ted or provided and to identify mutually 
acceptable equivalents.  
Savings from the use of e-Procurement:  There is a small but gr owing body of proof that 
savings are being realised as a result of e-Procurement use. Ofte n these savings are substantial 
(€millions); experience suggests these investment s can be recouped in administrative savings 
within short time-frames. Investment costs in national and regional e-Pr ocurement facilities – 
spanning e-portals to more comprehensiv e solutions – range from 0.5m€ to 5m€.4 
Maintenance costs vary from several thousand Euros to several million, presumably depending on the size and sophistication of the system. Time savings are also reported – not 
just as a result of the possibility to reduce d eadlines, but also through the introduction of more 
efficient processes.  
                                                
 
4 Based on information availabl e from the e-Practice website 
EN 11   EN Have the objectives of the Action Plan been achieved? 
As at end 2009, 13 of the 31 measures in the Action Plan had been completed, three were 
partially completed (i.e. some action has been unde rtaken but at present little advance is being 
made), 13 were on-going and two had been delayed.  
In broad terms it is clear that whilst progr ess has been made to  introduce and use e-
Procurement, the overall objective of unhindered cross-border electroni c procurement has not 
yet been achieved. Realistically, given the comple xity of the change required and the inherent 
challenges in moving towards electronic systems, these objectives were al ways unlikely to be 
achieved in such a short time-frame – it is perhap s fairer to ask if grea ter progress could have 
been expected.  
Do we have a well functioning Internal Mark et in electronic pub lic procurement?  
Progress has been made, particular ly at the national level, but there is currently no internal 
market in e-Procurement – greater availability of e-Procurement infrastructure has not yet translated to wide-spread use and cross-border e-Procurement is  virtually non-existant. Whilst 
different "island" solutions exist, the bridges to connect them do not and the lack of common 
standards and interoperability problems create barriers to cross-border e-Procurement. The 
legal framework appears to have been correc tly implemented and many countries now have 
the appropriate basic tools in place, although some legal issues still need to be addressed. The 
current situation bears marked similarity to the baseline scenario of the extended impact 
assessment i.e. the situation expected to deve lop in the absence of Community level action. 
Given that action was taken, it would seem fair to  conclude that less has been achieved than 
might have been expected. 
Have we achieved greater efficiency in procurement, improved governance and 
competitiveness?  
At a national level, there is some evidence that efficiency has improved due to e-Procurement 
– certainly many portals promote the savings made by using their systems. Some initial 
improvements in governance have been seen – at le ast during the proce ss of introducing e-
Procurement, when many countries followed nationa l plans; future strate gies appear less well 
developed. Goal oriented policy making does not seem to have been widely adopted – only 
seven countries have systems for regularly colle cting procurement data and information and it 
is not clear how much e-Procurement monito ring is conducted. There are indications that 
competition has increased – some countries repo rt increased numbers of bidders per tender – 
certainly many economic operators appear to be registering with the va rious portals. So some 
improvements have been seen, although again th ey are probalby less than might have been 
expected. 
Have we progressed towards an international fram ework for electronic public procurement?  
Although the Commission has made progress and carried out the actions identified under the 
Action Plan, there has not been much progress in  developing an international framework for 
e-Procurement. Here expectations were perhap s not that high as success relied on a multitude 
of factors and was not always w ithin the control of the EU.  
EN 12   EN How the Action Plan has contributed to the current situation 
The contribution of the Action Plan to the curre nt situation is best addressed by considering 
the answers to the three evaluation questions. 
To what extent have public procurement procedures been "computerised"? 
As discussed above much progress has been made  to introduce national  level solutions, but 
actual use appears to be low and there is a stil l a long way to go to achieve the vision of the 
Action Plan. Some countries have developed "state of the art" systems; others have adopted 
simpler, lower-tech solutions. As yet, no eviden ce has been presented that approaches based 
on lower levels of technology have experien ced any problems in relation to providing 
acceptable levels of security and trust. Many of  the necessary technical building blocks which 
were expected to develop over this period have not advanced to a point where the market has 
converged on common standards or approaches . Whilst e-Procurement in the EU may be 
nearing the Manchester target5 of 100% availability in 2010, at least in theory, it is currently 
far short of the 50% use target. 
To what extent did the EU Action Plan for e-Pr ocurement identify the right priorities and 
strategy? To what extent has  it been implemented?  
The Action Plan appears to have identified the main priorities for developing e-Procurement 
although more emphasis/action could have been  directed at aiding and encouraging 
organisational change. It correctly identified the need to create a single consistent EU 
legislative framework and provide related guidance.  It stressed the need to develop solutions 
for interoperability, standardisation and authentication and promoted clear planning and monitoring to efficiently manage the introduct ion of procurement using electronic means. 
Many measures encouraged sharing best practices and experience. Perhaps a little prematurely, it also promoted advancing EU  solutions on the international stage and 
encouraged consistency with international developments. 
A few, perhaps subtle exceptions may be high lighted however. One relates to the emphasis 
placed on the adoption of qualified signatures . These technologically demanding solutions 
may be creating an unnecessary barrier to access and cross-border use and to-date, no "lower 
tech" solutions have caused problems relating to s ecurity / trust. Also, there has been a certain 
trend to develop and use more practical workar ounds rather than higher tech solutions which 
were implicit in the Action Plan (e.g. in re spect of e-Certificates  and e-Attestations. 
The soft law approach of the Action Plan has certainly been fruitful and encouraged the 
development of creative solutions. Whilst appropria te in the context of a developing market, 
the strategy could have gone sl ightly further and been more  pro-active, putting in place 
control mechanisms to ensure  actions were conducted. Often the more targeted actions, 
accompanied by the use of clear incentives – for example the changes to TED and e-
Notification, produced greater success, more dir ectly attributable to the Action Plan. Perhaps 
the greatest flaw, although no-one could know th is at the time, was the reliance on faster 
technological developments expected to crea te the optimal conditi ons for introducing and 
adopting e-Procurement.  
                                                
 
5 Manchester ministerial declaration, 24 November 2005  
EN 13   EN How relevant, efficient and effective has the Acti on Plan been in achieving or at least nearing 
the stated objectives of efficient and unhinde red cross-border e-Procurement in the EU?  
The evaluation shows quite clearly that the majori ty of priorities identified by the Action Plan 
were relevant in 2004 and many remain relevant today, although some shifts of emphasis may 
be appropriate in relation to issues such as authentication and e-Attestations. It is more 
difficult to judge how well resources from the Action Plan have been used to achieve the results identified. Reviews of the existing syst ems imply that the studies and projects have 
contributed to the progress made but it is no t possible at present to assess the overall 
efficiency of the Action Plan. Many of the Acti on Plan measures have contributed in some 
degree to the progress made, but the actual objectives of the Action Plan have not been met in 
full and hence its actual effectiveness is limited. To achieve the vision of the Action Plan, further co-ordinated action is required.  
Remaining issues and challenges to developing wide-spread, cross-border e-
Procurement 
A number of challenges and weaknesses have been  identified which prevent the wider take-up 
of e-Procurement and cross-bo rder participation in on-line procurement. Looking to the 
future, the Commission must continue to act to minimise the risks of a decentralised, 
fragmented approach at EU level. The followi ng issues (presented in no particular order) 
appear important. 
• Provision of a supportive legal environment. As systems develop it may be necessary to 
set clearer conditions for their use and to define the obligati ons relating to the provision 
and operation of such platforms. In the wi der legislative context, changes might be 
required in related legislati on e.g. the e-Signatures Direc tive (under consideration), e-
Invoicing and VAT. 
• More pragmatic approach, where appropriate, to technical issues : Some of the more 
sophisticated approaches to e-Procurement may be preventing wider access and 
interoperability. There is currently no way to  facilitate mutual recognition of national 
digital solutions to critical e-Procurement el ements such as authen tication and evidentiary 
documents. Solutions need to be found which are proportionate to th e risks within the 
procurement process and which reduce the burde n on contracting author ities and suppliers 
wishing to operate in a wider European market. 
• Greater support for administrative simp lification and organisational change.  Many 
countries have reported inertia and a lack of interest on the part of economic operators and 
contracting authorities. More needs to be done  to identify and prom ote ways to simplify 
the procurement process and facilitate organi sational change. Within this policy, steps 
should be taken to introduce better monitori ng systems at both EU and national level.  
• Lack of standards in e-Procurement processes. For the foreseeable future, suppliers will 
be confronted with an e-Procurement lands cape consisting of different e-Procurement 
platforms and arrangements. Each system ma y contain different technical features and 
functions, complicating the task of suppliers w ho seek to participate in multiple systems. 
Whilst convergence on one monolithic system is  neither desirable nor intended, it will 
facilitate participation if there is some comm on core functionality ac ross systems. Many of 
the most challenging issues manifest them selves in the submission and processing of 
tenders phases. 
EN 14   EN • Improved access and wider inclusion. Action may be necessary to ensure that e-
Procurement is available to all interested parties including SMEs and that the benefits can 
be shared by all.  
Next Steps 
Faced with this situation, the Commission believes  that there is a need for sustained attention 
at EU level to accompany the wider take-up of e-Procurement. Rather than proposing detailed 
recommendations here, the Services of the Comm ission would like to fi rst propose a period of 
wider consultation, to build consensus on the most  important issues to be addressed and the 
approach to be adopted. This consultation pha se will be triggered by the publication of a 
Green Paper, building on the results of this  evaluation, intended for publication in October 
2010.  
Future monitoring and evaluation  
Monitoring is an important part  of any policy intervention whic h allows users and managers 
to check that an activity is “on track” and iden tify timely “corrective” actions if necessary. In 
conducting this evaluation it has become clear that although progress has been made since 
2004, with much research undertaken and publicati on of case studies and findings, there is a 
marked lack of commonly defined and collected statistics and indicator s at an EU level. 
Whilst it is neither possible no r appropriate at this point to actually define the indicators 
required, there are three obvious areas where effort must be targeted: the de velopment of 
indicators for the availability  and use of e-Procurement and also to measure progress in 
eliminating the main barriers identified. 
EN 15   EN 2. INTRODUCTION  
EU procurement legislation has helped to embe d a culture of professi onal and value-driven 
procurement across Europe. It has brought transp arency to markets for public contracts. In 
2009, over 150,000 contracts were advertised EU-w ide, for an amount estimated at around 
3.11% of EU GDP. Given the amount of public  money at stake and the number of public 
purchasers and suppliers involved, the way in which public procurement is regulated and 
administered has an immediate and significan t influence on the business environment.  
E-Procurement refers to the use of electroni c communications and tran saction processing by 
government institutions and other public sect or organisations when buying supplies and 
services or tendering public works. However, there is much more at stake than the mere 
changeover from paper-based systems to one s using electronic communications for public 
procurement procedures. E-Procurement has the potential to yield important improvements in 
the efficiency of individual purchases, the overa ll administration of public procurement, and 
the functioning of the markets for government contracts. The phasing-in of e-procurement 
forms part of the ambitious e-government ag enda which can fundamentally transform the 
delivery and performance of public administ ration. The Commission's European Digital 
Agenda foresees the adoption of a Commi ssion White Paper outlining steps that the 
Commission will take to establish an in ter-connected e-procurement infrastructure6. 
This evaluation assesses the advances made in  the adoption of e-Procurement since 2004 and 
the contribution of the Commission's 2004 "Acti on Plan for the implementation of the legal 
framework for electronic public procurement"7 to that progress. The objectives of the Action 
Plan were further underlined by the Manchester  ministerial declaration which called for: 
"By 2010 all public administrations across Europe will have the capability of carrying out 
100% of their procurement electronically, where legally permissible, th us creating a fairer 
and more transparent market for all companies i ndependent of a company ’s size or location 
within the single market 
By 2010 at least 50% of public procurement above the EU public procurem ent threshold will 
be carried out electronically." 
If the benefits attributed to the introduction and use of e-Procurement can be achieved fully, 
or even only in part, the potenti al for savings, both in time taken to procure and financially, is 
enormous. The Extended Impact Assessment (EIA)8 which was published alongside the 
Action Plan estimated that: 
"If online procurement is genera lised, it can save governments  up to 5% on expenditure and 
up to 50-80% on transaction cost s for both buyers and suppliers ." 
This evaluation presents the EU and Member St ates with a timely opportunity to review the 
progress which has been made in moving from  a purely paper based environment to one 
where e-Procurement is legally permitted, availabl e and used. It will also identify any barriers 
                                                 
6 A Digital Agenda for Europe COM(2010) 245 (page 32) 
7 Extended Impact Assessment, COM 2 004(841) available on DG MARKT website 
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement  
8 Page 1 of the EIA COM 2004(841) 
EN 16   EN to cross-border participation and issues which still need to be resolved. This review is well-
timed - there is still a window of opportunity to influence the development, shape and integration within this market, which has not ye t reached a critical mass. However, the market 
is evolving at an ever faster pace, a range of different national soluti ons are being developed 
and the window will not remain open for long.  
2.1. Purpose of this report 
In 2004 when the Action Plan was drawn up, cer tain objectives were set, resulting in 
expectations of how and what would be achie ved and where e-Procurement would be today. 
This evaluation will provide an overview of  the current state of play, identifying and 
analysing the structures and ar rangements that have been put in place to s upport and promote 
e-Procurement. It will also identify the assumptions made in 2004 and assess whether expectations have been met. Ultimately the report will present a judgement on how much 
progress has been made and whether the objectives  have been achieved, in  particular that  
"Use of electronic means should guarantee in pr actice that any business in Europe with a PC 
and an internet connection can participate in  a public purchase conducted electronically"
9.  
Once this stock-take is complete and the actua l situation has been compared with what had 
been expected, the focus will turn towards the future. This evaluation will be key in identifying any issues or areas for further action and hence developing future EU policy. 
The remainder of this chapter presents a shor t explanation of the basis upon which a system 
can be defined as providing e-Procurement or not  and discusses some of the main reasons for 
using electronic procurement systems. Chapte r 3 provides a brief b ackground summary of the 
situation in 2004, public procurement legislatio n, and the aims and approach of the Action 
Plan whilst the approach to this evaluati on and the methodology adopted is outlined in 
Chapter 4. Chapter 5 presents an overview of the current state of play of e-Procurement 
within the EU, highlighting the changes over this period. The im pacts and role of the Action 
Plan in contributing to this situation are th en analysed in Chapter 6, which concludes by 
assessing the progress  made against the three objectives  of the Action Plan. Chapter 7 
assesses the overall change and replies to the evaluation questions, iden tifying the remaining 
issues to be addressed and drawing conclusi ons on how successful the Action Plan has been. 
Recommendations for further policy development are also presented in Chapter 7 together 
with the proposed future appro ach to monitoring and evaluation.  
2.2. What is "e-Procurement"?  
Whereas there is a certain c onsensus around what it means to conduct "public procurement"
10 
it has become apparent over the course of this evaluation that the same can not be said for "e-Procurement". The 2004 Public Procurement Directiv es refer to the 'use of electronic means'. 
At its simplest, e-procurement is a catch a ll term for the replacement of paper based 
procedures with ICT based communications and processing throughout the procurement 
                                                
 
9 Page 10 of the EIA COM 2004(841)  
10 Public procurement is the process whereby the public sector, i.e. national, regional and local 
government and certain utilities, awards contracts to companies for the supply of goods or services, 
including building and construction works. The procurement procedure for contracts with an expected value above certain thresholds is regulated by EU legislation, intended to promote transparency and 
competition, thereby avoiding discriminatory or preferential purchasing an d encouraging purchasing 
bodies to make the best use of public resources. 
EN 17   EN chain. In addition, the use of electronic means allows for new purchasing techniques, e.g. 
innovative repetitive purchasing met hods based on the re-use of data. 
E-Procurement involves the introduction of el ectronic processes to support the different 
phases of a procurement process – publicat ion of tender notices, provision of tender 
documents, submission of tenders, evalua tion, award, ordering, i nvoicing and payment . The 
process is illustrated graphica lly below, and a more detailed  description can be found in 
Annex III. Although each of these phases/tools ha s a certain role to play in the full e-
Procurement process, it is not always necessary or even appropriate for all these elements to 
be provided electronically. Not all of the currently  available solutions are suited to all types of 
procurement and different approaches may be needed to integrate certain post-award phases 
with other back-office practices. Indeed it is quite possible th at some solutions e.g. for e-
Evaluation may never be developed to deal wi th all procurements e.g. procurements which 
require predominantly qualitative assessments.  
Figure 1 - Overview of possible phases and tools in an e-Procurement process 
 
Source: Siemens-time.lex report. 
This evaluation has worked on the assumption  that it is not necessary for all of these 
phases/tools to be carried out for a pr ocurement to qualify as "e-Procurement".  For the 
purposes of this evaluation the minimum requirement for a system to be defined as 
providing e-Procurement is the electronic pr ovision of the phases covering publication of 
tender notices, access to tender docu ments and submission of tenders. 
EN 18   EN 2.3. Why do e-Procurement?  
The Commission supports the transition from paper-based to on-line procurement because it 
sees the following advantages: 
– Benefits for individual procedures:  Compared to paper based systems, e-Procurement 
can help contracting au thorities and economic operators to  reduce administrative costs and 
speed up individual procurement procedures. In the current financial climate, such 
efficiencies could be very welcome, maximi sing the potential which can be obtained from 
limited resources.  
– Benefits in terms of more effici ent procurement administration:  the development of 
Central Purchasing Bodies (CPB s), often making extensive us e of electronic procedures, 
can help to centralise costly procurement b ack-office functions and reap scale economies 
in procurement administration. 
– Greater transparency and bette r monitoring of procurement:  By automating and 
centralising the flow of information about individual tender opportunities, e-Procurement 
can also enhance the transparency and overall efficiency of public procurement, opening 
up markets to more competition and deepening the pool of competing suppliers, whilst at 
the same time improving spend management and overall planning.  
– Potential for integration of  EU procurement markets:  E-Procurement reduces distance 
barriers and information gaps which could have reduced or discouraged cross-border 
participation in paper-based procedures. It should be underlined that, while e-Procurement can overcome distance-related costs to particip ation in the procurement procedure itself, it 
will not change the relevance of distance or physical proximity in the actual performance of the underlying business transaction. An increasing number of procurements, for 
example the provision of services such as software, design competitions and helpdesks, can be provided from another country and e-Proc urement should be well suited to publicise, 
exploit and ultimately rea lise such opportunities.  
– Administrative modernisation and simplification, encouraging the integration of various 
administrative processes as well as diffu sion of ICT in government and society. 
However, realisation of these benefits de pends on significant investment throughout the 
procurement eco-system to build the necessary  capacity and manage the change-over and 
these constraints should not be underestimated. 
3. L
EGAL AND POLICY BACKGROUND  
3.1. E-Procurement: The situation in 2004 
In 2004 e-Procurement was more of an aspiratio n than a reality. Some countries had already 
started to establish a legal environment for e- Procurement, with 17 ou t of 25 Member States 
already having some provisions permitting the use of e-Procurement. However, these provisions were not necessarily aligned with  the 2004 Directives. The available tools and 
websites were still embryonic - the Extended Impact Assessment  (EIA) mentioned that most 
of the experience in 2004 was limited to pilot schemes, often designed for below threshold 
EN 19   EN contracts and/or cen tral governments. The 36 portal s and platforms found in 200411 covered 
16 Member States (21 at national level, nine at regional level and six sector specific), but 
were mostly limited to publishing information about opportunities; only five Member States 
had made available systems covering both the not ification and tendering phases. In general, it 
was noted that the availability of solutions decreased as one went through the phases from e-
Notification to e-Payment and particularly once the phases required a two-way flow of 
information. Public and private sectors were  not very involved in the process.  
At this time, Member State systems were of ten limited by the existing software and legal 
considerations were not necessarily take n into account. Although advanced electronic 
signatures were permitted in 15 of the 25 Me mber States, actual use was low and not 
necessarily related to e-Procurement.  
In terms of the national strategies availabl e at that time, two opposite approaches were 
apparent – detailed strategies with concrete  measures or loosely defined, more general, 
strategic statements.  
In 2004, a lot of attention was being focussed on the challenges and difficulties of moving to 
e-Procurement. This reflected the lack of operational experience across Europe in using 
electronic procedures within a public procurem ent context. Both the Ramboll study and the 
EIA highlighted such concerns, particularly in relation to problems of financing and the 
organisational changes which would be required to switch from paper based procurement to e-
Procurement. These included: 
• The affordability of the creation and use of ne w technologies, particul arly with regard to 
the possibly limited financing capacities or will of economic operators and small and 
medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Particul ar emphasis was given to the resultant 
potentially negative impact on SMEs. 
• The possibility that procurement actors (both contracting authorities/entities and economic 
operators) who did not want to pay for the change would exclude themselves from the 
procurement market. 
• The challenging scale of changes in management and/or human resources within the public 
procurement sector.  
• The risk of a major negative impact in terms of access costs for businesses due to the un-
coordinated development of too many different initiatives and a lack of overall governance. 
3.2. The role of the EU in promoting e-Procurement 
The Commission's 2004 Action Plan provided a ro admap, establishing a strategy designed to 
accelerate the adoption of e-Procurement whils t safe-guarding the core principles and 
provisions of existing EU procurement legisl ation and wider Treaty principles. It was 
intended to encourage the deve lopment and use of convergen t, accessible, secure but 
commercially viable solutions and disseminate examples of best-practice. Action was also 
required to stimulate and orientat e the work of the first movers  in the field, who had already 
                                                 
11 Impact Assessment: Action Plan on electronic Public Procurement, study produced by Rambøll 
Management for the European Commission, available on DG MARKT website 
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement  
EN 20   EN introduced e-Procurement elements in their legi slation or practices, or set up e-Procurement 
systems. The policy vision underpinning the Acti on Plan was very ambitious - to create a 
situation where "… any business in Eur ope with a PC and an in ternet connection can 
participate in a public purchase conducted electronically."12 
The Action Plan was organised around three main objectives: 
(1) Ensure a well functioning Internal Ma rket in electronic public procurement;  
(2) Achieve greater efficiency in procurement, improve governance and 
competitiveness;  
(3) Work towards an international framework for electronic public procurement. EU policy was designed to play a complementar y role in support of national or regional 
efforts to put procurement on an electronic footin g. It recognised the need to take into account 
an EU level dimension, without which the sw itch-over could be hampered and resources 
could be wasted as the wheel was constantly  re-invented. A total of 31 measures were 
identified, directed at the Co mmission, Member States, standard isation bodies and the Public 
Procurement Network. 
3.3. The Public Procurement Directives 
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), drawing on earlier treaties, 
lays down fundamental and general principles a pplicable to contracti ng authorities in the 
context of public procurement
13. However it was decided, that on their own, these 
prohibitions were not sufficient to  establish a single market in this area. Differences between 
national rules and the ab sence of requirements to open up contracts to EU-wide competition 
often resulted in national markets being closed to foreign competitors. Secondary legislation 
was therefore needed to ensure this openness, as well as to make procedures more transparent.  
Since 1971, several Directives ha ve been adopted to supplement the general provisions of the 
Treaty, based on three main principles: 
• Community-wide advertising to foster cross-border competition;  
• The prohibition of technical specifications liab le to discriminate against potential foreign 
bidders; and 
• Application of objective crit eria for evaluation and award of public contracts.  
Over the years new Directives14 were adopted both to expand th e coverage of the Directives 
(eventually to works, supplies and services) a nd to exclude certain sectors (e.g. transport, 
energy, water and telecommunications). Othe r changes were necessary to integrate 
requirements related to GATT/WTO agreements and to address deficiencies of earlier 
                                                 
12 Page 10 of the EIA COM 2004(841) 
13 The provisions of the economic freedoms ban discriminatory measures and unfair treatment on grounds 
of nationality, in order to promote the internal market objective of removing barriers to trade and economic flows within the EU. The general ban on discrimination allows some flexibility in relation to 
security, health, environmental and consumer pr otection justifications, under certain conditions. 
14 Annex based on Claudio table showing evolution of Directives 
EN 21   EN legislation, such as national markets which we re still not sufficiently  open. The first Utilities 
Directive (90/531/EEC), in 1990 was based on the sa me principles as the previous Directives, 
and introduced a higher degree of flex ibility for contracting entities.  
In April 2004 the Council adop ted Directives 2004/18/EC and 2004/17/EC which replaced the 
previous Directives. They were intended to  modernise and simplify public procurement 
procedures, and recognised for the first time in EU procurement law, the possibility of using 
electronic procedures. The introduction of provisi ons on e-Procurement was expected to bring 
benefits to the Single Market, with greater fl exibility, transparency and competition, deemed 
to be key ingredients for moving towards the possibility of cross-border participation. The 
introduction of provisions on electronic comm unications was also pa rt of the on-going 
transition to e-Government in general, wanted by Member States. The provisions permitting e-Procurement are contained in article 42 of Di rective 2004/18/EC and article 48 of Directive 
2004/17/EC, which place the use of electronic m eans in procurement pr ocedure on a par with 
paper-based approaches. Several more detailed articles provide  further details relating to 
electronic communication, e-Notices and electroni c access to contract documents, electronic 
reception devices for tenders, and for supporting tools such as electronic auctions and dynamic purchasing systems. 
The Directives' provisions on e-Procuremen t were intended to address the on-going 
introduction of e-Procurement in some Member St ates and co-ordinate (to a certain extent) the 
approaches taken by Member States, so as to avoid the creation of any new barriers to access. 
The 2004 Directives were inten tionally not prescriptive and allow some flexibility with 
respect to the possible methods us ed to organise e-Procurement,  as long as "such use complies 
with the rules drawn up under this Directive and the principles of equal treatment, non-
discrimination and transparency"
15. As a result, the new Directives introduced the possibility 
for e-Procurement, but refrained from imposi ng any obligation on contra cting authorities and 
system users. 
3.4. The 2004 Action Plan 
The general basis for e-Procurement policy was sketched out during th e preparation of the 
2004 public procurement Directives. At that time,  some Member States  had already started 
thinking about modernising their procurement pr actices, but the new Directives together with 
the e-Procurement Action Plan were the first EU level policy actions to that effect. The general intention was to bring th e practices of the public sector closer to those of the private 
sector. In this context, the Action Plan provided a roadmap, esta blishing a strategy for 
transition and grouping actions under three po licy goals at EU level, designed to:  
• Address general internal market policy concer ns, both within the EU  and internationally 
(Objectives 1 and 3); 
• "Deepen" EU public procurement policy (Objective 2); and 
• Introduce e-Procurement specific measures in areas under direct EU competence (mainly 
within Objective 1). 
The Action Plan also recognised that certain intermed iary measures were required to provide 
elements for the other actions to build on (namely, the development of some common 
                                                
 
15 Recital 12, Directive 2004/18/EC, Recital 20, Directive 2004/17/EC 
EN 22   EN necessary basic tools and building blocks / temp lates to make electronic procurement systems 
function). The full set of measures proposed by the Action Plan, toge ther with further 
information relating to the barriers intended to be addressed and the scope of the action can be 
found in annex IV. 
3.4.1.  Content of the Action Plan  
Being a key EU internal market policy, public pr ocurement, and e-Procurement in particular, 
needs to be conducted in a way that encourages, or at least permits cross-border exchanges. A 
major risk when introducing e-Procurement would be to recreate nationa l borders on the basis 
of national technical and policy choices. The first set of meas ures in the Action Plan, under 
Objective 1, focuses on the transposition of the legal framework - the key element for developing coherent initiatives at various levels based on common grounds. The use of 
electronic means provides severa l possibilities to improve th e internal market for public 
procurement. E-Procurement has the potential to reduce distance barriers and information 
gaps which could have reduced or discourage d cross-border particip ation in paper-based 
procedures. It may also increase efficiency th rough use of electronic means for managing and 
processing data.  
Interoperability of systems and the related openness of e-Procurement markets were also 
important and are addressed by elements of  the Action Plan. The Commission was tasked 
with the responsibility to define  and explain the EU technical,  legal and policy framework and 
ensure coherence in the internal market. Within this framework, Member States should be able to advance at their own pace and move  more flexibly, encouraging solutions and 
allowing a single market to develop.  
In terms of deepening the role  of the public procurement polic y, e-Procurement was seen as a 
modern way to achieve greater transparency and efficiency. For example, automation and 
control mechanisms in electronic proceedings we re viewed as ways to limit the human factor 
for a certain number of phases, reducing the time required, increasing consistency and where 
appropriate, making the process mo re objective. Complementary to this, the clear definition of 
roles and tasks in electronic systems coul d improve governance. Online publication (e-
Notification) and availability of tender documen ts (e-Access) were both seen as ways to 
dramatically increase the potential publicit y given to business opportunities. This was 
expected to increase access/inclusion in publi c procurement markets for every interested 
company (including SMEs), which as a conse quence should encourage competition. Increased 
competition in public procurement should, in theo ry at least, lead to  a better choice amongst 
tenders, resulting in better value for money (via reduced prices, increased quality or both). It 
should also play an important role in  the elimination of unfair behaviours. 
E-Procurement specific measures were also set in the Action Pl an. The goal was the reduction 
of administrative costs in the pr eparation and transmission of offers, as well as simplifying the 
preparation of tenders. Both due to the provi sions of the Directives on the reduction of 
publication delays and on easier an d faster accomplishment of th e different phases pre- (e-
Access, e-Submission) and post-award (like e- Ordering and e-Invoicing), e-Procurement was 
seen as a promising way to streamline and accelerate e-Procurement procedures. 
In addition, the Action Plan foresaw intermediary measures to develop the basic building 
blocks for other initiatives. These actions we re mostly directed at the European Commission 
and encompassed basic standardis ation decisions such as the a doption of new standard forms 
for the publication of procurement notices adap ted to take into account the new procedures 
EN 23   EN and the use of electronic applications, or  the revision of the Common Procurement 
Vocabulary (CPV) to adjust it to  an electronic environment.  
Finally, on the basis of the last objective of th e Action Plan, the European Commission was to 
undertake some fairly flexible actions at inte rnational level chiefly intended to share good 
practices and promote the development of e-Procurement techniques and systems which 
would be interoperable with the Europ ean ones through international standards. 
3.4.2.  Strategic approach of the Action Plan 
The EIA which led to the development of the Action Plan identified a range of possible 
strategies. From these, the two more moderate (soft law) suggestions we re retained as most 
viable and form the basis of the road map which was drafted at EU level. 
The EU Action Plan adopted a deliberately flexib le and non-prescriptive approach intended to 
foster creativity and encourage the devel opment of new solutions, whilst coordinating 
transposition and implementa tion by the Member States. This approach seemed most 
appropriate given the coordinating character of the basic public procurement Directives, 
which limits action at EU level,  and the very decentralised a nd multi-faceted structure of 
public procurement market in the Member States. In particular it was considered too early to impose certain standards and behaviours in policy area which was still new and largely 
unexplored in 2004 when the Action Plan was drafted. 
In essence, the chosen approach for the Action Plan reflects the challenge of regulating ICT-
related policy generally, and particularly in a complex, rules-driven field such as public 
procurement  
The downsides of this approach were clear at  the outset – the possibl e development of many 
different solutions could cause problems with in teroperability and lead to the emergence of 
new barriers. This was due to the fact that, in many areas, the Directives implicitly placed the adjustment costs for ensuring interoperabil ity upon the Member States, if not with the 
individual contracting authoritie s. The risk was that those adju stment costs, e.g. the costs of 
using a compatible application or  signature, would be further sh ifted to busine sses wanting to 
bid in public procurement, especially acro ss borders, thus redu cing participation.  
In order to counter this risk of fragmentation, the Action Plan carved out a specific role for the 
Commission. Together with the Member Stat es, it was intended to identify the main 
interoperability challenges and how to addr ess them, including appropriate and effective 
means for compliance verification of national de velopments. However, the Action Plan itself 
was based on soft-law, meaning that none of th e measures identified were legally enforceable. 
As such, the ability of the Action Plan to achieve its set objectives was clearly dependent on the co-operation and participation of the various parties. Although the Commission had 
proposed certain actions, it had limited scope  to ensure compliance with specific 
recommendations, beyond what was foreseen in the Directives. Despite these limitations, the 
Action Plan set itself three very ambitious ob jectives, intended to accelerate and promote EU-
wide adoption of e-Procurement a nd hence realise the benefits pr edicted in as short a time as 
possible. It was expected that developments  in the technology would occur in the same 
timeframe, allowing the maximum synergy to be achieved. E-Procurement developments 
were also expected to act as a catalyst for the wider e-Government environment, triggering 
improvements and adoption acr oss a range of services. 
EN 24   EN 4. EVALUATION METHODOLOGY  
4.1. Scope and limitations of the evaluation 
The 2004 Action Plan calls on the Commi ssion, by the end of 2007, to start to " review and 
report on the results achieved and to propose, if need be, […] corrective action or additional 
measures ".  
This evaluation has therefore two objectives: (1) To report on the current state of play for e-Procurement and identify the progress made 
since 2004; and 
(2) To review and evaluate the contribution of the Action Plan to that progress and 
identify issues requiring attention. 
Given the fairly short reference period a nd certain known limitations on the available 
quantitative data sets, it was clear from the outset that it would be difficult to attempt a 
definitive evaluation. The absence of detailed, c onsistent EU-wide data makes it difficult to 
assess objectively the cause and effect relations hips which would usually be the focus of any 
evaluation of the role played by the Action Plan. As a result of these data limitations, it has not been possible to define or use consistent indicators of progr ess made. This report therefore 
presents a stock-take of developments and tr ies to identify/indicate why these results are 
observed. Often these judgements are not based on specific pieces of evidence, but draw more 
on the overall trends observe d. The report highlights areas  where further review and 
adjustment of policy may be required, before new e-Procurement systems and tools become 
too entrenched.  
4.2. Our approach 
The evaluation concentrates on assessing the exte nt to which public procurement procedures 
in the EU have been digitise d, and how the progress observed is related to the measures 
included in the Action Plan. As such, the focus is not on providing a full economic evaluation 
of the impacts of the Action Plan, but rather, on pulling together a picture of what has 
changed and trying to identify where it is re asonable to imply that the Action Plan has 
influenced any change and to assess how far it has progressed to wards achieving its specified 
objectives (see below).  
The state of play (see Chapter 5) presents the progress made in moving from paper based 
systems to e-Procurement during the period 20 04-early 2010 and covers the 27 EU Member 
States, three EEA and two Accession countries (Croat ia and Turkey). As pa rt of this process, 
the transposition of the 2004 Directives has been reviewed and all phases and tools of the e-
Procurement process have been assessed, with pa rticular attention to th e tools introduced by 
the 2004 Directives. The value of contracts dea lt with by some e-Procurement systems is not 
always clear. Where known, the evaluation repor t states whether the information relates 
specifically to contracts above or  below the thresholds set by th e EU procurement Directives.  
In considering the contribution of the Actio n Plan, three main evaluation criteria are 
considered: 
• Effectiveness – to what extent the Action Pl an measures have achieved or contributed 
towards meeting the objectives of the Action Plan; 
EN 25   EN • Efficiency – whether in carrying out these measures, good use has been made of the 
resources available given the results identified; and  
• Relevance – to what extent the Action Plan measures still match the current needs of e-
Procurement. 
Some distributional effects are also considere d, albeit to a limited extent – how different 
parties have been affected, including Econo mic Operators and more particularly SMEs, 
Member States and Contracting Authorities. Othe r factors of interest which are also assessed 
include trends towards centralis ation and aggregation effects. 
Rather than placing too much emphasis on the individual success of each of the 31 measures 
which make up the Action Plan, conclusions are more generally drawn with respect to the 
three main objectives and the groupings of measures which were presented under each of 
them. These break down as:  
(1) Ensure a well functioning Internal Market in electronic public pr ocurement (total 16 
measures);  
• Implement the legal framework corr ectly and on time (3 measures) 
• Complete the legal framework by the a ppropriate basic tools (4 measures) 
• Remove / prevent barriers in carry ing public procurement procedures 
electronically (6 measures) 
• Detect and address interoperabili ty problems over time (3 measures) 
(2) Achieve greater efficiency in procurement, improve governance and competitiveness 
(total 10 measures);  
• Increase efficiency of public procurement and improve governance (4 measures) 
• Increase competitiveness of public procurement markets across the EU (6 
measures) 
(3) Work towards an international framework fo r electronic public pr ocurement (total 5 
measures) 
The intervention logic, evaluati on questions and their related success criteria presented below 
(see section 4.4) have been drawn up on this basi s. Chapter 6 presents the results of this 
evaluation, first by using the stat e of play to assess how much the expectations of the Action 
Plan (identified in the intervention logic) ha ve been achieved and s econdly, by assessing how 
far the objectives of the Action Plan have been  realised. The evaluation questions are then 
answered in section 7, by refe rence to the success criteria. 
The final assessment of how much progress ha s been made and how successful the Action 
Plan has been will be to judge the current situ ation against the "ideal" vision, i.e. to ensure 
that it is now possible in  Europe that, through the us e of electronic means: "… any business in 
Europe with a PC and an intern et connection can participate in a public purchase conducted 
electronically."16  
                                                 
16 Page 10 of EIA COM 2004(841)  
EN 26   EN Whilst this vision was always very challenging (and perhaps unrealistic in the short 
timeframe) it nonetheless provides a clear be nchmark against which actual progress can 
ultimately be measured. 
4.3. Data sources 
A great deal of work has been undertaken in the field of e-Procurement in the last years, and 
practitioners have often been open to sharing th eir experiences – so this evaluation has been 
able to draw on a range of case studies, publis hed individually or in  particular on the e-
Practice website17. There are also several large studies on specific aspects – particularly tools 
and phases, some of which have been produced as a result of various measures in the Action 
Plan18. Much of this information is qualitative an d although very valuable in explaining what 
has happened in an individual instance, it is not always possible to compare or aggregate 
cases, due to different understandings or objectiv es for e-Procurement. The main information 
relating to the situa tion in 2004 is taken from the EIA and the supporting external study19. 
As has already been mentioned, quantitative data is more diffi cult to come by – virtually no 
information is available which has been calculat ed on a consistent basis across the whole EU. 
Where appropriate, data has been extracte d from the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) 
database, which contains the information, provi ded by Contracting Authorities when they 
complete the standard forms. In general this information relates only to procurements above 
the thresholds set in the EU Directives and th ere are only a limited number of entries relating 
to e-Procurement tools.  
In order to prepare this eval uation two new pieces of work we re commissioned – the first by 
Ernst and Young Italy provided background inform ation and attempted to collect data via 
detailed questionnaires from all relevant stakeholder groups20. Whilst every effort was made 
to ensure a good response  rate to these questionnaires and the efforts of those who responded 
are much appreciated, the numbe r of replies was not sufficient to allow representative 
statistics to be calculated. As a result, no re port was produced analys ing the results; where 
appropriate and useful, the response s to certain questions have been  used in this report (and in 
the Siemens-time.lex study mentioned below) to  shed some light on developments. However, 
due to the small data set, these findings should be treated with caution and are generally only 
presented in tandem with information from other sources.  
Secondly, a study by Siemens-time.lex built on findi ngs from the earlier work and resulted in 
the report "Study on the evalua tion of the Action Plan for the implementation of the legal 
framework for electronic procurement" published at the same time as this evaluation report. 
This study provides an assessment of the approach and strategy of the Action Plan and a detailed state of play of e-Pr ocurement in the countries reviewed (both as an overview and in 
terms of the different phases and tools). It also contains a first analysis of the role the Action 
Plan has played in moving e-Procurement forw ard and presents some recommendations for 
future strategic action. As  part of this work, fiches have b een drawn up identifying the legal, 
political and technical infrastructure in each of the 32 countries. These fiches were then 
                                                
 
17 www.ePractice.eu  
18 See Annex II for list of reports and studies 
19 Available at http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement_en.htm 
20 2008 Commission e-Procurement survey announced in press release IP/08/1577 
EN 27   EN validated by members of the e-Procurement Working Group21 and form the basis for much of 
the analysis presented. Unless stated otherwise, this study is the main source of the evidence 
quoted in this evaluation and will be refe rred to as the "Siemens-time.lex study". 
A great deal of information has also been  gathered from practical experience and 
developments, including visiting and reviewing many of the websites and portals which have 
been developed. Other useful sources of inform ation include the meetings and discussions of 
the e-Procurement Working Group and the many c onferences and seminars which have been 
organised by various practi tioners and associations.  
Further details on this reference ma terial are presented in Annex II. 
Taken together this information provides a broa d base to describe the current state of play 
with respect to e-Procurement. Often however it is not sufficient to prove, particularly on an 
EU level, that certain results are due to certa in actions. This has had a limiting effect on the 
evaluation. 
4.4. Intervention logic and evaluation questions 
The intervention logic is a visual  representation of the origina lly expected "cause and effect" 
consequences of the Action Plan at its adoption. It has been c onstructed after considering the 
main objectives of the Action Plan and identify ing what it hoped to achieve and how. Figure 2 
below represents these expectations at the level of the three main objectives (grouped 
measures) discussed above. As such, it is the summary of separate in tervention logics which 
were created for each objective (see Annex VI).  
In broad terms the intervention logic shows that in the first instance, the Action Plan measures 
were supposed to result in a clearer legal environment, where there were no legislative 
barriers to the use of certain to ols. This was to be achieved through joint efforts by both the 
Commission and the Member States that would build on the skeleton provided by the 
Directives. Technical barriers were also expected  to be overcome or at least minimised and it 
was expected that the basic infrastructure for providing e-Procurement would be made 
available/improve in all Member States. Transpar ency should increase, particularly due to the 
measures relating to the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV), standard forms and the 
creation and use of a fully elec tronic system for the collectio n and publication of procurement 
notices on TED (Tenders Electronic Daily).  
The Action Plan contained measures addresse d to both buyers and suppliers. The rationale 
was that some measures should make it easier fo r Economic Operators (EOs) to participate in 
electronic procurements, particularly across bo rders and there was also a specific action 
targeted at improving access to these markets by SMEs. However, this action could only be a 
soft approach, as contracting au thorities and bidders must act within the confines of their 
national procurement regime and hence could only be targeted in an indirect way. Contracting 
authorities should be inspired to adopt bus iness friendly approach es, avoiding squarely 
shifting transaction costs to the economic oper ators whilst preservi ng different business 
models 
                                                 
21 The e-Procurement working group is a committee comprised of experts from European national 
administrations. 
EN 28   EN Over time, it was expected that it would be pos sible to build on these initial results, and e-
Procurement would be more frequently used; us ers would be more confident and all parties 
would experience greater security and reliability in the procurement process. After an initial 
period of setting up and transferring to electronic systems, the effort and costs associated with 
conducting e-Procurement were also expected to  reduce as parties became more familiar with 
the process and it became more mainstream. At the same time, this process of change was 
expected to foster and introduce administra tive simplification – resulting both from 
technological advances and revi ews of previous systems. Indi rectly this might also cause 
some increase in unemployment, possibly offs et by new jobs in innovative sectors which 
could provide the new technologies required. Th ere was also some expectation that this 
increased use would ripple out,  improving the interoperability and sophistication of the wider 
e-Government environment and l eading to greater investment. 
In addition it was expected that the parties who (first) moved towards using these systems 
would already have a higher than  average level of technical ab ility, perhaps having already 
some knowledge or experience of e-Procuremen t. Given that these systems could also be 
quite costly to introdu ce, it was also thought possible that more a ffluent parties (e.g. 
contracting authorities with acc ess to larger budgets , certain economic operators) would take 
the first steps into this area. Implicitly, this accepted that some parties might use cost as a 
justification for not adopting e-Procurement. 
Ultimately it was hoped that the convergence of all these effects would lead to increased use 
of e-Procurement, particularly  across borders thus ensuring an open and efficient internal 
market for public procurement. Competition benefits were also expected – both in terms of greater competition for bids with  a resultant reduction in the price paid by the public sector 
and also in relation to improving European competitiveness through the use of new, innovative e-Business tools.  
Drawing on this intervention logic, three key evaluation questions  were identified: 
(1) To what extent have public procurement procedures in the EU and EEA Member 
States been 'computerised', i.e. migrated from paper to the use of electronic means 
(including legal/policy/econom ic/technical aspects)?  
(2) To what extent has the EU e-Procurement Action Plan identified the right priorities 
and strategy to progressing to wards the use of electronic means in public procurement, 
and to what extent has it been implemented?  
(3) How relevant, efficient and effective has the Action Plan been in achieving or at least 
nearing the stated objectives of efficien t and unhindered cross-border e-Procurement 
in the EU?  
 
EN 29   ENImpacts  Overall impacts 
(overall objective of the AP)  Aim(s) of the Action Plan for this 
objective 
(proposed measure)  Expected results linked to this 
objective 
(expected reaction to the action)  Direct 
(desired effect) Indirect 
(possible other effects) 
Implement the legal framework correctly and on time 
Commission must issue explanatory document on the new rules 
on electronic public procurement 
Commission must issue online training demonstrators to 
familiarize MS with the new e-proc provisions and tools 
Commission must provide assistance to MS in transposing the 
new legal provisions 
Complete legal framework by appropriate basic tools 
 
Commission adopts new Standard Forms for procurement notices  
 
Commission coordinates the revision of the CPV  
Commission provides a blueprint for a fully electronic system for the collection and publication of procurement notices on TED 
 
Implementation by MS of electronic systems at national level incl. tools for automated collection + publishing in TED  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
Context: 
• General goal: public proc must be non-discriminatory, generally available 
and interoperable and by no means restrict economic operators’ 
access to the tendering procedure  
• Linked legislation includes specifically the eSignatures Directive (provides 
a basic working tool) and VAT Directive 2006/112/EC (including 
eInvoicing as described in articles 232 and following) 
• Overall policy context: i2010 objectives Member State Action: 
 
• They must implement the legal framework, including notably the new 
forms and the CPV 
• eProcurement uptake is encouraged and expected but not mandated by 
the Directives (or the Action Plan) External factors: 
•The Services Directive could have a strong impact, especially through the 
eSignatures work (CROBIES), and due to eDocuments concerns (IMI 
system)  
•Large scale pilots provide key building blocks; notably PEPPOL, but also 
STORK and SPOCS 
•Greater call for simplification, also from a political perspective, see e.g. 
Stoiber Group and ongoing review of eInvoicing rules  
 Improve cross border 
access to public procurement markets, thus 
supporting the Internal 
Market 
 
Reduce costs for the public 
sector by improving 
efficiency and stimulating competition in the Internal 
Market
 Implementation  is facilitated and speeded  up 
(deadline: 31/1/2006) 
Error free implementation; no 
misunderstandings about scope of new provisions 
Consistent and transparent public procurement 
Single, common EU infrastructure for eNotices 
National infrastructure for eNotices compatible 
with EU system  Accelerated uptake of eProc 
& of new tools Accelerated uptake of 
electronic notices No legal barriers for 
eProcurement 
Common EU understanding of eProc 
Greater PP participation  Greater legal certainty 
Administrative simplification  
Effort/cost of participation 
drops for tenderers Improve eGov 
interoperability and 
sophistication in general 
Reduced risk of market fragmentation 
Private and public proc. 
can share best practices 
Technical know-how may 
favour participants with 
more sophisticated 
technical infrastructures 
Automation may eliminate 
now unnecessary jobs; this 
may be offset by new jobs in innovative services  
Increased eProc/eGov 
investment (incl. private 
sector) 
 
Figure 2 Intervention Logic Source Siemens-time.lex report  
 
EN 30   EN Taken together, these questions cover the three evaluation criteria mentioned in section 4.2 - 
effectiveness, efficiency and relevance. In answering these questions, this evaluation will assess the extent to which the assumptions and expectations summarised in the intervention 
logic have become reality. To help identify and measure the progress made, the following 
success criteria were selected. Given the limitations in the quantitative data available, no numeric indicators have been selected; the succe ss criteria will be used to provide a mainly 
qualitative assessment of what has actually been achieved, supplemented by numeric data 
where possible. There is some overlap between the application of thes e success criteria to a 
particular question – for simplicity, in the table below they have been "assigned" to the most 
relevant question. 
Table 1- Evaluation questions and success criteria 
Evaluation Question Success Criteria 
To what extent public procurement 
procedures in the EU and EEA Member States have been 'compu terised', i.e. migrated 
from paper to the use of electronic means (including legal / policy / economic / technical aspects)  
 • Increased availability
 of different e-
Procurement phases and tools in countries 
in comparison to 2004 
• Increased use  of different e-Procurement 
phases and tools in countries as compared to 2004 
• Degree of technological sophistication 
evident in systems developed 
To what extent the EU e-Procurement Action 
Plan has identified the right priorities and strategy to progressing towards the use of electronic means in pub lic procurement, and 
to what extent it has been implemented  
          Priorities 
• No legal barriers to use of e-Procurement 
• No technical barriers to use of e-
Procurement (particularly in relation to agreed standards and e-Signatures) 
• Interoperable e-Procurement systems 
within and across countries 
• Increased use of elec tronic signatures 
since 2004, especially qualified signatures 
• Existence and use of common standards 
for documents, phases and tools 
• Improved governance of public 
procurement (including collection and 
publication of related statistics) 
• Progress towards creation of an 
international framework for e-
Procurement 
 
EN 31   EN Evaluation Question Success Criteria 
To what extent the EU e-Procurement Action 
Plan has identified the right priorities and strategy to progressing towards the use of electronic means in pub lic procurement, and 
to what extent it has been implemented  
 • Equal and fair access to all markets for all 
Economic Operators, particularly SMEs 
• Dissemination and sharing of experiences 
Strategy 
• Use of guidance material, demonstrators 
etc 
• Application of recommendations from 
various studies provided 
• Completion and compliance of various 
actors with the measures 
How relevant, efficient and effective has the Action Plan been in achieving or at least nearing the stated objectives of efficient and unhindered cross-border e-Procurement in the 
EU?  • Clear links between progress achieved and 
measures in Action Plan 
• Ability of e-Procurement systems to 
permit cross border procurement 
• Reduced cost of procurement resulting 
from use of electronic systems 
• Reduced time to procure resulting from 
use of electronic systems 
• Systems introduced are less complicated 
and bureaucratic than systems they replace
5. STATE OF PLAY 
5.1. Introduction 
The current state of play across the EU, EEA an d Accession countries is  the result of a wide 
variety of approaches and concrete actions, many  of which were included in the Action Plan. 
This section tries to give an overview of th e situation by 2010 in terms of availability, 
technical choices, policy and orga nisational approaches and distributive effects. Overall, it 
can be seen that clear progress has been made in the migration of the procurement phases and 
the development of tools for e-Procurement is promising. 
5.2. How have countries implemented the possibilities offered by the 2004 
Directives? 
While the Action Plan did not sp ecify a particular approach to transposition, it aimed to 
facilitate the understanding of the legal framework and to enc ourage an appropriate exchange 
with the Member States when th eir transposition provisions were at drafting stage. The issues 
 
EN 32   EN that could have arisen during the transposition process include: ensuring consistency within 
the overall national legal framework; possible un certainty or inconsistency resulting from 
national actions and/or differe nt transposition timing. The following summarises the more 
detailed information on transposition contained in the Siemens-time.lex study.  
The 2004 EU Public Procurement Directives defi ned a new set of proce dures e.g. e-Auctions, 
Framework Agreements, Buyer Profiles and D ynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) designed to 
give procurement authorities a range of possibi lities to carry out effective and efficient 
procurement. Some such procedures (e-auctions, DPS) were explicitly designed for the use of electronic means, to improve procurement outcomes by taking maximum advantage of the 
possibilities offered by technology.  
Member States were given the choice of impl ementing provisions concer ning the use of such 
tools. It is therefore importa nt to examine the main appro aches adopted and understand the 
current e-Procurement context in different countries.  
5.2.1.  E-Auctions 
e-Auctions are defined in the Public Procuremen t Directives as ‘a repe titive process involving 
an electronic device for the pr esentation of new prices, revise d downwards, and/or new values 
concerning certain elements of tenders, which occurs after an initial full evaluation of the 
tenders, enabling them to be ranked using automatic evaluation methods’
22. Thus, through an 
electronic auction, economic operato rs are invited to update their offers one or more times 
after the initial submission with  respect to the price or to other criteria that can be 
automatically evaluated, in order to ensure th at their offer is optimally placed to win the 
procurement contract. The Directives exclude fr om the scope of electro nic auctions certain 
service contracts and works contracts having as their subject matter inte llectual performances, 
as such performances cannot reasonably be evaluated automatically.  
In 2004, seven countries reported  some experience with e- Auctions, while 23 countries 
expressed the intention to in troduce e-Auctions. In 2010, 26 c ountries support its use. Among 
the six countries that have not transposed the e-Auctions provi sions, only two countries do not 
intend to do so (DE and LI). Th e majority of countries opted fo r a direct transposition of the 
provisions of the Directives. Where gold-plating23 has occurred, countries have added further 
provisions intended to delineate the scope of e-Auctions and to clarify communication flows 
during e-Auctions. 
Table 2 - Transposition choice: e-Auctions 
Legally supported Not legally supported e-Auctions transposition 
choice 26 6 
Direct transposition  Gold plating  Simplified transposition  Unknown 
15 countries (including 12 Member 
States)  6 countries (including 5 Member 
States)  1 country (including 1 Member 
State) 4 countries (including 4 Member 
States)  
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex report 
                                                 
22 Article 1.7 of Directive 2004/18/EC 
23 Gold-plating refers to the practice where nationa l bodies exceed the terms of European Community 
directives when implementing them into national law (see Commission Communication on 
simplification; see http://ec.europa.eu/governance/better_regulation/glossary_en.htm#top ) 
 
EN 33   EN 5.2.2.  Framework agreements 
Framework agreements are defined in the Direc tives as “an agreement between one or more 
contracting authorities and one or more ec onomic operators, the purpose of which is to 
establish the terms governing contracts to be awar ded during a given perio d, in particular with 
regard to price and, where appropriate, the quantity envisaged”. Through framework 
agreements, a temporary ad hoc environment is thus created within which contracting 
authorities can launch specific procurements, for which offers can only be submitted by economic operators who are a part of this environment, and in which these offers must comply with the specific requirements of the environment. Electronically managed framework 
agreements have the potential to include more economic operators  and to serve more 
contracting authorities, leading to more efficient purchases.  
In 2004, there was experience with framework agreements in 15 Member States. Relevant 
provisions were transposed in  all the Member States except Belgium where framework 
contracts are recognised. Some Me mber States adopted provisions  so as to adapt the content 
of the Directives with specific features e.g. Au stria has made the use of electronic framework 
agreements mandatory for federal authorities fo r specific goods and services. (Please note, the 
standard forms received from Belgian author ities indicating framework agreement were 
actually framework contracts, concluded between a single contracting au thority and a single 
economic operator for a limited duration of time.) 
5.2.3.  Buyer profiles 
Buyer profiles are an optional feat ure introduced in the 2004 Directives
24, intended as an 
additional information element to advertise plan ned purchases in a give n year. This should be 
published on the websites of contracting author ities, providing certain basic information as 
requested by the Directives. The informati on published on buyer prof iles is non-binding and 
should be regarded as an "early warning" system, which has to be complemented by a very short notice in the OJ. 
The current transposition status of buyer profiles is the following: 
Table 3 - Transposition choice: buyer profiles 
Buyer profiles are suppo rted/defined in the 
legislation Buyer profiles are not supported/defined in 
the legislation 
20 countries (including 18 Member States 12 countries (including 9 Member States) 
Source: Siemens-time.lex country fiches 
However, it should be noted that the transpos ition of the buyer profile might be somewhat 
unclear - among the very small number of "notices on a buyer profile" published on TED 
between 2006 and 2008, 73.9% did not mention th e URL where the buyer profile could be 
found, which is a major requirement for the proper use of buyer profiles. 
                                                 
24 Point 2(b) of Annex VIII of Directive 2004/18/EC 
 
EN 34   EN 5.2.4.  DPS 
A DPS is defined in the Directives as “a comp letely electronic process for common purchases, 
the characteristics of which, as generally avai lable on the market, meet the requirements of 
the contracting authority, which is limited in dur ation and open throughout its validity to any 
economic operator which satisfies the selection criteria and has submitted an indicative tender 
that complies with the specification.”25 
In essence, a DPS can be thought of as an electronic open framework agreement i.e. a 
procurement system in which economic operators that have joined the DPS via an indicative 
tender can choose to announce the availability of  standardised goods, services or works which 
meet the requirements defined by the contractin g authority that set up the DPS, and which can 
thereafter be used by that contracting author ity to easily and electronically acquire such 
goods, services or works from the most favour able economic operator. Contrary to a 
framework agreement, new economic operators can join a DPS after its establishment by 
submitting an indicative tender which meets the requirement of the DPS. As with a framework agreement, accession to a DPS doe s not necessarily lead to a concrete 
procurement as such; an economic operator could join a DPS and offer its goods or services to 
contracting authorities without ever successfully concluding a procurement contract for these 
products or services with an economic operator. This could be because there is no demand for 
the goods or services being offered or becau se another economic operator offers more 
favourable terms.  
In 2004, when there was virtually no experience w ith DPS, 18 Member States expressed their 
intention to implement it. In 2010, 27 countries legally suppor t it. Among the five countries 
that have not transposed the D PS provisions, only two countries do not intend to do so (DE 
and SE).  
Within their national legislation, 10 Member States have added furt her provisions on DPS, 
relating to: clarification of the conceptual fram ework and the different stages; delineating the 
scope of DPS as well as proced ural and/or administrative requi rements. This may show that 
some Member States felt it was necessary to address a lack of clarity in the Directive 
provisions on DPS. 13 adopted a direct trans position and only one country chose a simplified 
transposition (Estonia). 
Table 4 - Transposition choice: dynamic purchasing systems 
Legally supported Not legally supported DPS transposition 
choice 
27 5 
Direct transposition   Gold plating  Simplified transposition  Unknown 
13 countries (including 9 Member 
States)  10 countries (including 9 
Member States))  1 country (including 1 Member 
States)) 3 countries (including 3 
Member States))  
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex report 
                                                 
25 Article 1.6 of Directive 2004/18/EC 
 
EN 35   EN 5.2.5.  E-Signatures 
In 2004, 15 out of 25 Member States reporte d the introduction of electronic advanced 
signatures and seven expressed their intentio n to introduce such signature. In 2010, 18 
countries expressly require th e use of electronic signatures in e-Procurement procedures, 
while 13 countries do not explicitly  require them. In terms of th e type of signature required, 
13 out of the 27 Member States have introduced  a legal requirement specifying the use of 
advanced e-Signatures. The regul atory choices of Member States  in regard to e-Signatures 
may indicate their preferences in relation to security and trust but  also need to be considered 
from a cross-border and inter operability perspective.  
Table 5 – Transposition choice: e-Signature 
e-Signature is always required  Contracting authority may require the use of an e-Signature  
e-Signature  Advanced e-
Signature  Advanced 
based on 
qualified 
certificate Qualified 
signature  e-Signature  Advanced e-
Signature  Advanced 
based on 
qualified 
certificate Qualified 
signature  No signature 
requirement 
4 countries 
(including 3 
Member 
States)  4 countries 
(including 3 
Member 
States)  4 countries 
(including 4 
Member 
States)  6 countries 
(including 6 
Member 
States)  4 countries 
(including 4 
Member 
States)  6 countries 
(including 4 
Member 
States)  0 countries 
(including 0 
Member 
State)  1 country 
(including 1 
Member 
State)  2 country 
(including 2 
Member 
States)  
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex report 
5.2.6.  Transposition: time ta ken and approaches adopted 
In the 2004 EIA Member States indicated their intended transposition tim etable and approach, 
against which the actual transposition process can be compared. The deadline for transposition was 31
st January 2006. At that time, one country anticipated transposition in 
2004 (DK), while 14 Member States expected th e Directive to be transposed in 2005 and 
eight in 2006. Two Member States did not, at that point, have a set timetable for 
implementing the Directives. In fact 11 Member States implemented the Directive within the 
applicable deadline and 21 countri es transposed with some delay (among them the five non - 
EU countries). On average, the delay compar ed to Member States' expectations was around 
14 months. 
With respect to the different transposition appr oaches, Member States either opted to update 
existing Public Procurement Acts or to create  entirely new ones: 22 countries chose to adopt 
new acts, whereas 10 decided to update existi ng acts. Several strategies were adopted by 
Member States: some opted for a transposition telle quelle ; others chose to add further details 
to the Directive provisions in the national legislations (so-call ed "gold-plating"). 
5.3. What e-Procurement strategies have been adopted? 
The differences in the existing administrative co ntext and culture, available IT infrastructures 
and the state of art of early e-Procurement opera tions, have all contributed to Member States 
choosing different strategies to implement e-Procurement. 
5.3.1.  National level approaches 
The Action Plan recommended that Member St ates adopt national pl ans to channel and 
coordinate the efforts of the national procur ement authorities towards the defined goals. 
 
EN 36   EN From the policy point of view, only 18 out of  the 32 examined countries adopted national 
action plans containing “measurable performance targets” as required by  the Action Plan. 14 
countries have either no action plan at a ll or only loosely defi ned high level policy 
declarations.  
The level of policy detail for national action pl ans is summarised in the following table: 
Table 6 - National action plans 
No action plan / high level only Action plan with phases of 
implementation Action plan with uptake goals Action plan with cost savings 
goals 
Bulgaria Denmark Estonia 
Finland Greece Hungary 
Luxembourg Malta Poland 
Slovakia Slovenia UK 
Iceland Liechtenstein Belgium Cyprus France 
Germany Latvia Lithuania 
 The Netherlands Portugal Spain 
Sweden 
Croatia Turkey Austria Cyprus France Germany 
Ireland Italy Latvia Romania 
Turkey Czech Republic Ireland Italy 
Latvia Portugal  
Norway Turkey 
14 countries (including 12 
Member States) 12 countries (including 10 
Member States) 9 countries (including 8 
Member States) 7 countries (including 5 
Member States) 
Source: Siemens-time.lex report 
In terms of the development of an e-Procur ement policy, the Ernst & Young survey gives an 
insight to the various approach es. Most countries adopted a "step by step" implementation 
approach (14 replies put of 22); two went "big bang", intr oducing a full and comprehensive 
policy; one developed the policy as it went along; two answered  that they have no current 
implementation of e-Procurement. As regards th e timing of policy developments, 12 out of 22 
respondents answered that their e-Procuremen t strategy was still being implemented in 2010 
while six out of 22 have completed it (oth ers have not answered or did not know). 
The Action Plan also highlighted two other types of specific plan: i) to be targeted at SMEs 
and ii) individual national buyers. Only four in stances of clear SME related plans were found 
by Siemens-time.lex in Ireland, France, Scot land and Italy. All four countries have 
experienced some success in encouraging SMEs  to move from paper based to electronic 
procurement. Some concerns are also being voic ed in other countries wh ere there is a feeling 
that SMEs are being excluded from procurement opportunities, often due to trends towards 
aggregation and centralisation. 
Although Siemens-time.lex did not identify any Ac tion Plans which were adopted by national 
buyers, replies to the Ernst and Young Member State questionnaire did imply that nine 
countries (from 22 replying to th e questionnaire) had found it usef ul to address the issue of 
most powerful buyers for procurement at a non-ce ntral level; six countries  had found it useful 
to have elements relating to regional buyers; si milarly seven countries had found it useful to 
have elements relating to local buyers.  
 
EN 37   EN Public Contracts Scotland portal26- SMEs participation 
The Public Contracts Scotland (PCS portal - www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/  ) was 
created to act as a single public sector “el ectronic portal” to support this process. 
The system is intended to allow all public sector  contracting authorities in Scotland to manage 
the procurement process from end-to-end in an  electronic environment, from preparing 
standard documentation to advertising a notice, fr om receiving electronic tenders to awarding 
a contract. It is currently used by over 1100 pu blic sector users acro ss central government 
(including agencies and non-de partmental public bodies) and local government; the National 
Health Service; higher and further education organisations; police, fire and rescue services; 
voluntary sector organisations; registered social landlords and all other public sector 
contracting authorities operating in Scotland.  
Uptake has been successful, with 28.000 economic operators re gistered, 82% of which are 
SMEs. In the first eight months of opera tion, over 780.000 e-mail aler ts were sent to 
economic operators, alerting them to over 3.700 potential business opportunities. This has 
resulted in over 16.000 notes of interest on contracts, of which 81% are from SMEs. 
As for investments associated with this porta l, implementation costs were reported to be 
between €500,000 and €999,000, with yearly costs between €49,000 and €299,000. Economic 
effects are estimated in the range of €1,000,000 and €5,000,000. 
Source: DG MARKT, based on Siemens-time.lex report 
5.3.2.  Centralisation 
A major policy concern, linked to Ob jective 2 of the Action Plan, relates to the question of the 
centralisation of purchas es. The 2004 Directives  introduce the notion of central purchasing 
bodies (CPBs) as entities that procure on behalf of other public bodies, meaning that the actual beneficiary of such procurem ent is not its contracting authority
27. This has two possible 
consequences: 
– CPBs may reach greater efficiency in procur ement, as they buy on a larger scale, which 
can create savings. They may frequently use framework agreements (and DPS), thus 
conducting lighter procedur es and/or saving time; 
– CPBs could reduce competition, particularly if they use framework agreements with 
identified suppliers and which may exclude SM Es (which are assumed to be less capable 
of providing the resources required by large framework agreements.) 
The study conducted by Ernst & Young provides in teresting data on centralisation and CPBs. 
It implies that many countri es have encouraged centralis ation; 12 respondents have 
encouraged centralisation at central/national level and seven of  these twelve have also done so 
at regional or local level. Of these seven, five countries also promote cen tralisation at sectoral 
level. Thus centralisation at all levels (i.e. national, regional, lo cal and vertical) is occurring in 
a fairly small number of countries.  
                                                 
26 Source: http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/pcscotland   
27 Article 11 of Directive 2004/18/EC 
 
EN 38   EN Almost all countries encouraging centralisation at national level also reported an effective 
increase in the aggregation of purchases. At re gional/local level, 5/7 co untries reported such 
an increase and 3/5 at sectoral level. Only two countries did not experience any increase in 
centralisation, despite having encouraged it at central/national and regi onal level. Conversely, 
some countries experienced an increase in cent ralisation while not explicitly encouraging it. 
Considering the different ways to centralise purc hases, the survey seems to imply that most 
purchasing bodies are found at national level, 16 Member States declared at least one national 
purchasing body and only three stated  that they have none at that level. Interestingly, very few 
countries seem to have purchasing bodies act ing on regional or local levels. One country, 
Norway, has a large number (40)  of local purchasing bodies.  
The following table gives an overview of the number of CPBs by country. 
Figure 3 - Central Purchasing Bodies at national level 
Purchasing bodies per country
0102030405060
AT BE BG CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GR HU IR IT LI LT LU MT NO PT RO SE SI SK UK
CountriesNumber of purchasing bodiesVertical 
Local
Regional
National level
 
Source: DG MARKT based on Er nst & Young stakeholders survey 
5.3.3.  Simplification 
Simplification was one of the ke y policy targets of the Action Pl an. This simplification could 
be compared against two situations, i) to paper procurement, or ii) to the situation in 2004. In 
both cases, the current state of play seems to be more efficient for the phases of e-Notification 
and e-Access. As per the provisions of the Dire ctives, use of the two electronic phases allows 
a subsequent reduction of the pr ocedural times. As those phases are both available in 29 of the 
32 countries, there is a strong pot ential for simplification, but no figures relating to the length 
of procedures are currently available which might help to confirm this (the underlying 
assumption being that simpler procedures take less time). It should be underlined also that 
economic operators, particularly SMEs, raised some concern about  the reduction in timescales 
and the subsequent time availa ble to prepare their bids.  
From looking at the portals and platforms, it would seem that those which require simpler 
authentication are likely to be less subject to cross-border difficulties. One example is the use 
of username/password systems, for instance in Ir eland or the UK, which is simpler to manage 
for both buyers and suppliers and theoretica lly permits easier cr oss-border access if the 
 
EN 39   EN requirements to obtain identifiers are kept acce ssible to foreign users.  Tools or procedures 
more complex to set up such as DPS seem to have been neglected.  
Public Procurement in general has been targeted as being a priority area by the "Better 
regulation" agenda of the European Commission and is one of the polic y areas considered by 
the High Level Group of Independent Stakehol ders on Administrative Burdens ('Stoiber 
group'). In this forum, e-Procurement has b een promoted as a means to simplify public 
procurement. 
5.3.4.  Mandatory requirements 
On the question of whether the use of e- Procurement should or should not be made 
mandatory, there are interesting differences in  approach. According to the Ernst & Young 
survey, eight Member States have already made  e-Notification mandatory and a further four 
are thinking of doing the same. At present, two countries have made e-Access mandatory. In 
other cases, some Member States have made or plan to make post-award phases such as 
invoicing and payment mandatory (SE & DK). Ot her Member States do not plan to adopt a 
mandatory approach. 
It is interesting to see that many countries have preferred to introduce a more restrictive policy 
than the EU legislation, including mandatory elem ents in parts of their e-Procurement systems 
and procedures. The most frequent element is e-Signatures, made mand atory in 19 of the 32 
countries. Some Member States have made the use of specific phases mandatory for 
purchases above certain threshold values or for defined t ypes of purchases (e.g. AT and FR 
for e-Submission). Portugal has taken the str ongest approach, in this regard, making e-
Procurement mandatory for the whole pre-awar d process. The table provided in annex IX 
gives an overview of the situ ation for the 32 countries.  
5.4. What infrastructure has been put in place? 
5.4.1.  Different types of infrastructure identified 
Existing types of e-Procurement infrastr uctures can be summarised as follow: 
a) e-Procurement platform : A solution designed specificall y for an individual organisation 
to support its procurement proce sses. Due to the high developmen t costs, such a system is 
commonly used by large organisations with a high number of procurement processes. 
b) Multi-organisation platform : A solution that a service pr ovider develops and runs for 
subscribing procurement organisa tions. Individual buyers "rent" from a third party a private 
space on the procurement application where they can define their own users, processes and 
deliverables. This model is widely implemented across Europe with many variants. The third-party service is offered in certain countries by a public body and in othe r countries by private 
organisations on a competitive basis. Subscr iption by procurement authorities and charges 
vary accordingly. In some countries (e.g. Portugal ), this model has been made mandatory to 
achieve economies of scale for the w hole public sector e.g. Vortal (PT). 
 
EN 40   EN The new Portuguese legal framework 
Under the new Portuguese legal framework (Decree 18/2008), from 1 November 2009 any 
public procurement procedure (open, restrict ed or negotiated) has to be conducted 
electronically (from e-Notification to e-Award). In concrete terms, contracting authorities 
have to use one of the seven currently certi fied platforms to run their procedures.  
It is interesting to see that each and every step  of an e-Procurement procedure can be managed 
on line in Portugal in systems which are not intended to create any extra costs for the 
economic operators. The costs related to the us e of the platform are borne by the contacting 
authorities through service contracts with the pl atform. In terms of e-Signatures, Portuguese 
citizens and companies may use their e-ID ca rd to sign throughout the procedure. In the 
future, this option will proba bly also be opened up to ci tizens and companies from EU 
Member States using similar e-ID cards. In the meantime, foreigners may request to have the 
signature they use recognised as valid by the Portuguese sy stem, after it has undergone 
validation by recognised e-Signatu res verification authorities.  
The measured impacts of e-Tendering in Portugal are: 
– Open procedures reduced from 88 to 49 days 
– Estimated annual administrative costs savings (time, overheads, paper etc.) of €28 million 
per year.  
Source: DG MARKT, based on 2008, Deloitte "Impacts  of the Introduction of the Public Contract 
Law" quoted in L. Valadares Tavares (eVA), " Public e-Tendering in the European Union" 
c) CPBs' framework platform : A system supporting the provisi on of goods and services to 
public offices under framework agreements signe d by a CPB. CPBs, at national or regional 
level, establish framework contracts setting conditions and terms for the supply of certain 
(common) products and/or the provision of (co mmon) services to the benefit of the public 
buyers in their jurisdiction. Products and serv ices covered by each fr amework contract are 
usually then placed in a catalogue. By navigati ng such a database, individual public offices 
issue specific orders (by basi cally selecting how much they  want to buy in the case of 
products and what type of tasks they want to  be performed in the case of services). One 
example is the Austrian Federal Procurement Agency (FPA). 
d) Marketplace : A general catalogue of (common) produc ts and services offered by a CPB to 
public buyers in a country or region. Interested suppliers subscribing to  these services publish 
their products in the catalogue offered by th e CPB specifying price,  delivery time, areas 
served, guarantee period, etc. Procurers can na vigate the catalogue, iden tifying for each item 
the suppliers offering that item and the relate d conditions and terms. They then choose the 
product by placing it into a "shopping cart". This type of service can only be used for below 
threshold procurement, complying in legal terms to placing a direct order within an informal 
list of accredited economic operators. The Ital ian marketplace MEPA provides such services 
(see box below). 
e) Procurement portal : A web based solution offering a si ngle entry point to a number of 
procurement platforms such as those indi cated above. The portal may provide some 
information on top of the services that it gives access to. Again, the portal may be run by 
national authorities or by businesses on a competitive basis. 
 
EN 41   EN The Italian Electronic Public Admi nistration's Marketplace (MEPA)28 
“The Italian Public Administra tion e-Marketplace is a virtual market in which any Public 
Administration can buy goods and services, be low the European threshold, offered by 
suppliers qualified according to non restrictive selection criteria. The entire process is digital, 
using digital signature to ensure  transparency of the process. It is a dynamic tool in which 
products and services are presented in e-Catalogues according to standard formats. […] It 
allows the public administration to negotiate  the price and service conditions by inviting a 
pool of qualified suppliers to  make a customized quota tion, providing both price and 
technical/quality details." This dynamic procedure stimulates strong competition, gathering 
offers from various suppliers. In 2007, the vol ume of all purchases completed through MEPA 
since its launch in 2003 reached €160 million. R ecent regulations have made the use of the 
Marketplace compulsory for central public bodies.  Implementation costs were reported to be 
between €5,000,000 and €10,000,000. General economic ef fects were estimated to be over 
€10,000,000. 
One of the main goals of MEPA was to impr ove SME participation in public procurement 
procedures, through openness, transparency and pr ocess simplification related to the adoption 
of electronic tools. This policy appears to have been successful: 
– 97% of registered suppliers (more than 5.000)  are SMEs, and 64% ar e “micro” (less than 
10 employees). 
– SMEs receive more than 90% of MEPA to tal spending (€170 million in 2008) - “micro” 
enterprises get 45%. This represents a substantial increase against 2005 figures.29  
Source: DG MARKT based on ePractice 
5.4.2.  Overview of existi ng infrastructure 
Overall, the availability of portals and platfo rms for e-Procurement in the countries studied 
has increased dramatically since 2004. The degr ee of sophistication and coverage of the e-
Procurement phases varies, but the progre ss from 2004 is encouraging. The number of 
available systems and websites has also sign ificantly increased. The Siemens-time.lex report 
draws on the study of 129 main sites (22 CPBs , 81 portal sites and 26 platforms), which 
compared to the 36 systems identified in 2004, cl early shows the growth  in the number of 
sites. Both the lists for 2004 and 2010 were no t necessarily comprehensive - they gathered 
what was known at the time and where duplicates ex ist, certain solutions were counted as one 
- for example the German private sector ow ned Administration Intelligence AG platform, 
which is available in a number of contracting authorities (e.g. the cities of Frankfurt and 
Bremen and Hessen (Land)). Furthermore, th e Siemens-time.lex study shows that "at least 
rudimentary systems are now known to exis t in all but two countries: Greece and 
Liechtenstein30".  
                                                 
28 See http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/mepa1   
29 For more information see: « The determinants of  suppliers’ performance in  e-Procurement: evidence 
from the electronic public admi nistration’s marketplace (MEPA), Gian Luigi Albano, Federico Dini, 
Roberto Zampino and Marta Fana; see http://www.consip.it/on-
line/Home/Ricercaesviluppo/UfficioSt udi/Ricercheincorso/documento4679.html  
30 Siemens-time.lex report, section 5.3.2.2 
 
EN 42   EN It is important to note that availability in th is context means that there is a national capacity 
for running a specific phase or tool. It does not  mean that these elements are necessarily 
available on the same platform, or that they are interoperable at nati onal level when operated 
on different platforms. On the same basis, the availability of phases,  tools or parts of a 
procedure does not mean that national so lutions are opened to foreign bidders.  
Cross border accessibility can be marred in pr actice through language barriers. Based on an 
examination of 129 key sites, 39 provided at le ast some information in languages other than 
the national language(s). In each of these 39 cases, English is among the supported languages. 
However, only 13 of these 39 sites were rank ed as comprehensive, i.e. providing enough 
information in the translated language to perm it full usage of the webs ite. Language coverage 
thus remains a key challenge.  
E-Bourgogne platform/e-Ten procure pilot project 
Launched in 2005, the e-Procurement platform  e-Bourgogne serves over 950 public bodies 
from the Burgundy region of France. The platform has been used by more than 17,000 
economic operators (mostly local SMEs, but also many companies from across Europe), 
generating a total of nearly  315 000 downloads and more than 8000 electronic tenders 
between 2005 and 2009. A reduction of 15-20% in th e value of regular small tenders has been 
reported. Contracting authorities have also experienced an increase in the number of tenders 
received, from one or two to 10 to 2031. The mutualisation of development and exploitation of 
the platform allowed savings of €3 to 4 million.  
The technology used in e-Bourgog ne has been made available to other regions of the EU 
thanks to the EU-funded  PROCURE  project; The platform wa s built with an open-source 
licence, which enabled any other organisation to take it, adapt it and de ploy it for their own e-
tendering protocols. PROCURE has benefited from  the expertise of th e e-Bourgogne team to 
roll out an e-tendering platform  in several other EU regions: Brittany, Central Bohemia, 
Guadeloupe, Piedmont, and Uddevalla. But PR OCURE goes a step further than simply 
deploying isolated systems. The pr oject links them together and creates the first interregional 
network of shared e-Procurement platforms, providing cross-border e-Procurement solutions. 
Economic operators would benefit from greater business opportunity in a one-stop shop, with 
single registration; while contra cting authorities enjoy the results of increased competition. 
Source: DG MARKT based on ePractice and eTen Procure websites 
With regards to available phases and tools, the Siemens-time.lex  report included the following 
summary chart, drawing on data relating to the known portals and platforms: 
                                                 
31
 http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm? section=news&tpl=artic le&BrowsingType=Featur
es&ID=90524 
 
EN 43   EN Figure 4 – Availability of phases and tools 2004 vs. 2010 
Theoretically available phases and tools: 
2004 (red) and 2010 (blue) availabili ty of phases and tools in ke y eProcurement systems among th e
Member States: 
 
Evolution between 2004 and 2010:  
 
Source: Siemens-time.lex report 
It is interesting to see that the most widesp read phases in 2004 and 2010 are the same, namely 
e-Notification and e-Auction. Efforts seem to be more focused on the pre-award phases than 
on the post-award. The availability of e-Paym ent and DPS has not changed much between 
2004 and 2010. It is important to stress, this chart s hows the theoretical av ailability and not 
the usage, and does not make visible inconsis tencies or gaps in the "straight through e-
Procurement" process across Member States. It is also interesting to note that the availability 
of e-Evaluation and e-Award is much lower comp ared to the other pre-award phases; a similar 
tail-off is observed over the post-award phases from e-Ordering to e-Payment.  
Another element to take into consideration within the current state of play is that just because 
a specific tool or phase is le gally possible does not mean it is available, let alone used, in 
practice. The most striking exam ple of this is the DPS, whic h is legally supported in 22 EU 
Member States, but supported on a know e-Proc urement website in only one Member State 
(France)32. 
5.4.3.  Straight through e-Procuremen t: pre-award and post-award 
The table of availability provide d in the Siemens-time.lex report33 gives a good overview of 
the situations of tools and phases across the coun tries. From an operational point of view, it 
can be summarised as shown in Table 7.  
Only two EU and one EEA countries are able (or will be soon) to run a fully fledged e-
Procurement procedure, from e-Notification to e-Payment: the United Kingdom, Finland 
(which stated in their country fiche that e- Evaluation and e-Awarding was in a pilot phase) 
and Norway.  
This table indicates that the focus seems to ha ve been more on the pr e-award phases than on 
the post-award. Interestingly, the final phases of  both the pre- and post-award phases of the 
procurement procedure are missing in a number of countries: 
– E-Evaluation and e-Award for the pre-award, which can be more difficult to automate or 
which may require a human interven tion in a large number of cases; 
                                                 
32 Siemens-time.lex, section 3.2.2, page 79 
33 Siemens-time.lex, section 5.3.2.1, page 128 
 
EN 44   EN – E-Payment for the post-award, which might be more related to accounting and banking 
than to procurement strictly speaking. 
On the pre-award part, two Member States and th e two candidate countries are still limited to 
the one-way flow of information phases: e-No tification and e-Access.  Three countries are 
considered in this table as having no or  very limited pre-award experience:  
– Iceland has an e-Notification system av ailable without any known e-Access;  
– Greece has no known platform or portal offeri ng e-Notification, but is sending notices to 
TED in a structured format, which means th at there is some e-Notification capacity; 
– No information has been found for Liechtenstein.  
For e-Notification and e-Access, apart from th e language barrier, the introduction of a cross 
border dimension does not make the technical ma nagement and availability of this phase 
significantly more complex, as there are no major access/usage difficulties. 
For the post-award phases, there is no known e -Invoicing practice in c ountries that do not 
have known e-Ordering practices.  
Table 7 – Availability of phases  
Part of the 
procurement 
procedure Availability of phases Countries 
Full pre-award Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, 
Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Austria, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway 
Full pre-award except e-Evaluation and e-Award Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, 
Netherlands, Poland, Finland 
Only e-Notification and e-Access Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Croatia, Turkey Pre-award phases 
No pre-award or very limited Greece, Liechtenstein, Iceland 
Full post-award Finland, United Kingdom, Norway 
Full post-award except e-
Payment Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Sweden Post-award 
phases 
No post-award or very 
limited Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, 
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Iceland, 
Liechtenstein, Croatia, Turkey 
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex report 
 
EN 45   EN 5.5. Resultant use of e-Procurement 
In order to complement the availability as sessment provided above, it would have been 
interesting to have consistent figures correspon ding to the usage (in terms of contract value) 
of these websites (platforms or portals). This  would have given a clearer indication of the 
actual take-up of e-Procurement across the EU. Unfortunately, this  is not possible at present. 
Whilst some websites appear to have impressive use data, it is difficult to place a figure on the 
exact volume of procurement being conducted thr ough these sites. Some sites are used more 
for below EU threshold value contracts, othe rs for above; some provide data on all the 
contracts they have helped to conduct since the creati on of the website. It is also unclear how 
many phases need to be completed electronically  for a procurement to count as electronic. 
Whilst little can thus be said about the total value of contract s being procured electronically, 
some information is available about th e use of the various phases and tools. 
Two EU Member States which have been at the forefront of developing e-Procurement, 
France and Italy, estimate that electronic proc urement accounts now for approximately 4% (in 
France) and 2.5% (in Italy) of the total volume of procurement. In  Austria, using just the data 
relating to the mandatory use of electronic fr ameworks by federal agen cies, the figure would 
seem to be around 2%. Portugal, where e-Proc urement has been mandatory since 1 Nov 2009, 
is the exception as it should now be nearing 10 0%. In the absence of comparable figures for 
2004, it is difficult to evaluate the progresses made either in those Member States or in the EU 
as a whole. However, based on the limited data available, there is no reason to believe overall 
EU use is currently greater than 5%  of the total procurement value. 
As a summary, the following chart gives inform ation on the number of e-Procurement phases 
and tools used in 2004 and 2010. 
Figure 5- Comparison of phase s and tools used (2004 and 2010) 
 Use of phases and tools: 2004 vs. 2010
02468101214
Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
CountriesNumber of phases/tools2004
2010
 
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex 
 
EN 46   EN The phase which is most used across the EU is certainly e-Notification. This is 
understandable, as e-Notification is the entry po int for any e-Procurement solution, be that via 
a single platform or an e-Notif ication website linked to an e- Tendering platform providing 
further functionality. 
The following chart is based on data from th e EU Publications Office and presents the 
evolution in the transmission media for notices between 2001 and 2009. 
Figure 6 - Transmission media for notices 
Media 2001-2009
020.00040.00060.00080.000100.000120.000140.000160.000180.000
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009email
fax
paper
eNotices
eSenders
 
Source: OP  
The chart shows that there has been an almost  constant decrease in  the number of notices 
transmitted by fax and on paper (non-structured data). At the same time there has been an almost constant increase in the number of notic es sent by e-Senders (structured data) and e-
Notices (structured data) to the TED website, from their creation in 2005 following the release 
of the new standard forms requested by th e Action Plan. Between 2001 and 2004 there seems 
to have been a move to using e-mail as a new transmission media (non-structured data, 
electronically sent), but from 2005, e-mails foll ow the same decreasing trend as other non-
structured media. 
 
EN 47   EN 5.6. Assessment of the availability and use of specific e-Procurement tools  
The following table34 gives a picture of the availabil ity of electronic tools. It should 
nevertheless be underlined that the availabil ity of tools on a known e-Procurement website 
does not necessarily mean use in practice. 
Table 8 – Available tools: e-Ca talogues, DPS and e-Auctions  
Tool Member States where it is available on known sites Total 
e-
Catalogues for e-Ordering Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, 
Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway 18 countries 
(including 17 Member States) 
DPS France 1 country (1 
Member State) 
E-Auctions Denmark, Ireland, France, Italy, Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, 
United Kingdom, Norway 9 countries 
(including 8 Member States) 
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex report 
This section presents a more in-depth analysis of  the situation with respect to electronic tools 
for e-Procurement in the Member States 
5.6.1.  E-Catalogues 
E-Catalogues are electronic documents establis hed by suppliers, according to the guidelines 
or layout prescribed by the c ontracting authority in  a specific procedur e, which describe 
products and prices in a structured manner. E- Catalogues may constitute an offer in the pre-
award phase of a procedure or may be used fo r e-Ordering in the post- award phase. As they 
consist of two major elements – structure and co ntents – which should be standardised, but for 
which there are currently no widely used stan dards in the EU market, the exchange of e-
Catalogues and their understandi ng by both parties may be complex. 
E-Catalogues are being used and de veloped but on an ad-hoc basis, rather than in  a structured 
and re-useable format. The use of e-Catal ogues for e-Submission is still limited (although 
some interesting use cases exist in Denmark a nd Cyprus). Currently, e-Catalogues appear to 
be used mostly by CPBs for ordering under framework agreements, using ad-hoc e-Catalogues. There is, at the moment, no clearl y defined experimentation on the re-use of e-
Catalogues in the e-Submission a nd e-Ordering phases of the same procedure. The re-use of 
an e-Catalogue is possible only when both structure and contents are built on common standards.  
Whilst attempts to improve the definition of standardised elements for the structure is well 
under way, with studies and pilots in PEPPOL and e-Prior, attempts to standardise the 
contents are still limited. Contents need to be described using produ ct classifications or 
                                                
 
34 Data from Siemens-time.lex report, section 5.3.2.1, page 128 
 
EN 48   EN dictionaries which are sufficiently detailed to clearly identify a product for ordering in the 
post-award phase, or describe  a product when tendering in the pre-award phase. CEN is 
currently working, in its CC3P workshop, on proposal s to take advantage of the strengths of 
several commonly used classifications. 
5.6.2.  Certificates and attestations 
E-Certificates and e-Attestations are the el ectronic equivalent of the certificates and 
attestations used in traditional paper procurement. They refer to documentary evidence provided in an electronic form by economic operat ors, together with th eir bid, in order to 
demonstrate compliance with particular requirements. 
Electronic certificates and attest ations have been the subject of various implementations and 
attempts to balance efficiency and security according to countries' pr iorities. The following 
table summarises the four types of measures which have been observed. 
Table 9 – e-Attestations and Certificates 
Economic operators 
provide a declaration 
of compliance Economic operators 
register with a 
limited trusted third 
party (TTP) or 
prequalification 
system Contracting 
authorities obtain the 
information from 
another public sector 
controlled entity Administrations issue 
electronic certificates 
or attestations signed 
with a PKI signature 
- to postpone the 
submission of attestations 
- or to replace it - in some cases, 
submission of offers constitute an implicit declaration of compliance  - single confirmation 
of compliance issued by the TTP 
- contracting 
authorities may be authorised to obtain information from the TTP - direct and protected 
transfer of information from an administration to another - still largely in a 
pilot stage 
10 out of 32 countries; 31% 8 out of 32 countries; 
25% 5 out of 32 countries; 
16% 4 out of 32 countries; 
12,5% 
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex report 
The main approach adopted for certificates and at testations seen at pres ent is to reduce as far 
as possible the need to submit documents (in el ectronic or paper format) before signing the 
contract, thus relying on self-d eclarations from the economic ope rators. The existence of four 
separate solutions, relying on different degree s of external intervention, may increase the 
problem of cross-border partic ipation in public procurement be tween countries using different 
systems. Moreover, a national system is not n ecessarily interoperable with the same system 
ran in another country. 
 
EN 49   EN 5.6.3.  E-Signatures 
Within the e-Procurement context, the need to ensure a suitable level of authentication has 
been a key concern. E-Signatures are one possi ble solution to this issue, providing the 
additional benefit of establishing data integr ity. E-Signatures are electronic information 
attached to documents to ensure their authenti city and integrity. They are the technological 
approach recommended (but not mandated) by the 2004 Directives35. When electronic means 
are used for public procurement, secure commun ication channels (such as those provided by 
TLS/SSL) and/or advanced electronic signature s may be used by the parties involved, to 
address authentication issues. 
As a result, in principle contracting authori ties are free (subject to national regul ations) to 
choose the appropriate means of communicati on and authentication,  including electronic 
signatures.  
National legislation may establish mandatory re quirements for the use of e-Signatures (see 
section 5.2.5), by all contracting authorities, or may allow each contracting authority to 
independently choose the level of  signature required for a give n procurement. The approach 
followed by the Member States in this area is  very important, because the use of different e-
Signatures can lead to interoperability problem s between countries. In particular, it may not 
be possible for one country to verify a document that is signed in another country, even in the 
case that a tenderer fully adheres to the speci fications and applies exactly the type of 
electronic signature demanded by the contracting authority. 
This makes cross-border submission, in the cas e where an electronic signature is demanded, 
quite complicated at present. Procurements re quiring simpler but less secure authentication 
methods (e.g. username / password) are, in theo ry at least, subject to fewer cross-border 
difficulties. 
5.6.4.  Framework agreements 
As mentioned earlier, the situati on in relation to framework agre ements is different from the 
other e-Procurement elements as it is more a modality for public procurement than a real e-
Procurement issue. Legally supported across all the countries, apart from Belgium which recognises framework contracts, its usage varies greatly depending on the countries. 
Table 10 - Use in practice: framework agreements 
Low usage (less than 
1% of notices) Medium usage (1 to 10% 
of notices) High usage (more than 
10% of notices) 
Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, 
Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malta 
and Poland  Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, 
Germany, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Ireland, 
Luxembourg, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, 
Sweden, Slovenia and Slovakia Denmark, France, Netherlands and 
United Kingdom Practice 
8 Member States 15 Member States 4 Member States 
Source: Siemens-time.lex report 
                                                 
35 The 2004 Directives establish that awarding entitie s may decide that communication and exchange of 
information with economic operators can be perf ormed exclusively by el ectronic means or by a 
combination of electronic means and paper.  
 
EN 50   EN In general, the framework model has proved very  useful and successful . In some countries 
Member States have also used CPBs or centr al agencies to provide electronic framework 
agreements maximising the potential of e-Procurement to aggregate contracts, reduce back office costs and reap efficiencies of scale. In an  electronic format they should be able to serve 
a larger number of CAs and manage a larger nu mber of participating EOs efficiently. Austria 
has made their use mandatory for electronic purc hases by federal agencies (Sweden has also 
made their use mandatory by Government Agencies  unless the agency finds a more beneficial 
solution but does not specify th e use of electronic means).  
However, there may still be some issues to be  addressed – there are still worries about the 
closed nature of framework agreements re ducing competition and also how they may be 
restricting the access of SMEs to the procurement market 
5.6.5.  DPS 
Although the related provisions ha ve been transposed by a large number of countries (27 
countries), the analysis of TED data for th e periods 2006-2009 shows that DPS seem to be 
technically implemented only in France. In the other countries, the "sim plified contract notice 
on a dynamic purchasing system" (standard form n° 9) has been used only rarely. However, as 
none of these forms indicate references to a prev ious publication (the original contract notice 
establishing a DPS must be refe renced), it is difficult to judge  if these public ations really 
indicates that DPS are availabl e in the country publishing th e form n°9, or if it is an 
inappropriate use of the form. Adding to this confusion, there are instances where form n°9 
has been used in Member States where D PS are not, or not yet, legally supported. 
5.6.6.  Buyer profiles 
The availability of buyer profiles on platforms is interest ing to analyse. Buyer profiles are 
legally defined in 20 countries and are av ailable on known platforms in 12 countries. 
However, buyer profiles are both legally define d and available in only 7 countries, meaning 
that technically they are availa ble in 5 countries desp ite not being defined in the legislation.  
The appropriate standard form
36 to advertise the use or update of a buyer profile has been 
used in 14 Member States, including one Me mber State where buyer profiles are neither 
legally defined, nor available in any known plat form. The actual usage of buyer profiles, as 
notified to TED, is very low (344 notices on a buyer profiles published on TED from 2006 to 
2009). It is therefore difficult to analyse them any further. The tool seems either to be too 
loosely defined to be interesting for contracting authorities, or t oo unclear to be properly used 
across the countries. A quick review of various websites implies a wider use, but the elements 
labelled as buyer profiles are often limited, acting more as an electronic business card. 
5.7. Technical approaches present in e-Procurement systems 
The choice of a particular tec hnical approach has huge conseque nces both in terms of cross-
border exchanges and interoperability (because of conflicting standards, or because of the 
non-recognition of certain soluti ons across borders). It also a ffects the sophistication of a 
solution and thus in different degrees, the overall automation of the processes. Authentication is also an important factor – many of the fear s and concerns in moving towards e-Procurement 
relate to issues of trust; both EO s and CAs need to have faith th at the systems put in place, the 
                                                
 
36 Standard Form n°8 "Notice on a buyer profile" 
 
EN 51   EN tools they are using are providing  them with real, reliable information that can be handled and 
stored safely without risk of being altered or fraud being committed. There are also various 
ways to improve efficiency – particularly th rough avoiding practices which "re-invent the 
wheel" – practitioners want to obtain the maxi mum re-usability from their efforts, avoid 
duplication and wherever possible, simplify the processes. 
5.7.1.  Authentication 
The elimination of barriers to cross-border pr ocurement was one of the main goals of the 
Action Plan. The issue of authentication, particul arly the use of e-Signa tures, was considered 
at that time as being a key factor influenc ing cross border exchanges. As shown earlier 
(5.6.3), four different variants of e-Signatures ar e used in all but one Member State (Finland), 
either compulsorily or not. Authentication syst ems for critical phases such as e-Submission 
can follow different techniques ranging from the fa irly simple (but possibly less secure) to the 
very technical (but more secure): 
– Using a username/password authentication  following prior registration. This poses few 
cross-border problems once the registration  is completed, if no country-specific 
information is required for the registration; and 
– Using PKI based authentication systems  (supported by cryptography using encryption 
certificates). Currently these are, to large extent, unable to accept foreign solutions. 
5.7.2.  Standardisation 
Technical cross-border difficulties have been  spotted in the e-Ordering and e-Invoicing 
phases. While XML based standardisation work  (notably UBL 2.0) is becoming more and 
more popular, use is still base d on national variations, maki ng any cross-borde r application 
difficult or impossible in practice. 
Standardisation issues are also crucial for e-Catalogues, where th ere is no widespread use yet 
of standards like UBL or UN/CEFACT XML sche mes. In addition to this, there is no 
widespread unique classification system to describe products in  an e-Catalogue prospectus. 
Moreover, as e-Catalogues are currently ofte n set up for ordering under a specific framework 
contract, ad-hoc solutions relying on the contrac ting authorities' own cl assification of products 
and preventing reuse are still common practices. 
5.8. Savings 
In terms of benefits delivered by operations ran across the EU, there were great expectations 
relating to the savings which could be rea lised as a result of the introduction of e-
Procurement. The potential to reduce costs was promoted as a key incentive to encourage the 
switch to electronic procedures. Certain Member States have turned it into an objective of 
their national strategy, such as Ireland where five of the quantitative targets of their national 
action plan were focused on costs.  
Due to the lack of appropriate data, it is not possible at this stage to evaluate the reduction of 
costs of single procedures in the Member States. E-Procurement is expected to have initially increased the costs due to the necessary spending  for the creation of platforms, but a dramatic 
decrease of costs was expected, once the structural costs had been absorbed.  
 
EN 52   EN There is however a small but growing body of proof that savings are being realised as a result 
of e-Procurement use (see box below). Wider anecdotal evidence suggests that many 
contracting authorities and econom ic operators have made the switch-over to e-Procurement 
and would not contemplate a return  to paper based procedures.  
The ePractice37 website gathers case studies showing examples of Member States (such as 
Austria, Spain, France or Romania) where th e savings made through e-Procurement exceed 
the investment and running costs. The table in Annex VIII gives a broad overview of the 
situation by Member State in terms of savings. 
Examples of savings and improvements 
• Italian Emilia Romagna's agency Intercent ER offers e-Procurement services including e-
Marketplace, e-Catalogues and e-Auctions  and is now the reference point for 539 
administrations (90% of local agencies). In  2008 it processed tran sactions amounting to 
some € 419 million, delivering efficiency bene fits of € 67.5 million and time savings of 45 
man-years.  
• The Austrian Federal Procurement Agency cen tralises purchases for federal authorities 
through e-Procurement functionalities. In 2008 it reported savings of €178 million against 
a procurement volume of €830 million. Benefits seem to significantly outweigh the annual 
maintenance costs of €5 million, which are less than 3% of the savings.  
• As of 1 February 2005, all contracting author ities in Denmark may only accept electronic 
invoices. This reform affects approximately 15 million invoices a year, and applies to the 
entire public sector, from minist ries to nursery schools. The us e of e-Invoicing is expected 
to save the public €100 million every year, on top of savings in internal administrative 
processes. 
• In Norway, the Ehandel platform is helping au thorities to achieve 20-40% reductions in the 
time taken to handle orders, receipt of goods and invoicing and delive ring price savings in 
the region of 2-10%. 
• In the UK, the Buying Solutions website repo rted in its 2008/09 annual report that it had 
facilitated sales of over £5 billion, delivering £732 million in savings. The UK also 
reported savings frequently exceeding 10% (a nd even up to 45%) through the use of e-
Auctions and recently announced plans to use e-Auctions to save the taxpayer up to £270 
million by the end of 2011.  
• A Portuguese study compared the best bids for public works contracted by 50 Portuguese 
public hospitals in 2009 (using paper based sy stems) and 2010 (using e-Procurement). It 
concluded that a cost reducti on of 18% had been achieved in 2010, due to the increase in 
competition generated by e-Procurement.  
Source: DG MARKT, based on ePractice, na tional e-Procurement sites and Member State 
presentations  
                                                 
37 http://www.epractice.eu/ 
 
EN 53   EN Most of the required investment in e-Procuremen t must be undertaken at national or regional 
level, as this is where the needs and resource s for system-building lie. Therefore, any efforts 
that are undertaken at EU level must recognise that the primary impetus for e-Procurement comes from the national or regional level, or  that of relevant c ontracting authorities. 
5.9. Comparison with the experiences  of international partners 
It is interesting to see that the same trends vi sible in the EU and EEA in terms of the various 
developments in the e-Procurement arena can also  be observed at international level. A set of 
reference points or demonstrations emerge fr om analysing various ca se studies, showing 
possible areas of interest in re lation to the problems being encountered in the EU and EEA 
countries. On a general note, it would appear th at at an international level also, the initial 
enthusiasm and high expectations  for e-Procurement have not (y et) materialised and usage is 
still low. It is often observed that the lack of  consistent e-Procurement indicators hampers the 
development of a clear picture of how el ectronic purchasing te chniques are evolving. 
However, many third countries have taken a more  prescriptive and centralised approach than 
the EU, trying to address specific policy ta rgets such as: inclus ion of SMEs (e.g. by 
introducing preferential treatment by law); de finition of the role of central purchasing 
agencies; preference for integrated e-Procurem ent systems with prior supplier registration 
("closed circuit" systems); use of e-Auctions and framework agreements. The intention is also 
often to switch the focus more on efficiency than only on compliance. 
The major success story at international le vel is the South Korean platform KONEPS
38. From 
its origins in 1997, its efficiency has been recognised at international leve l and it has received 
several international awards over the last y ears (including from the UN and OECD). This 
system addresses each and every phase of a procurement procedure from notification to 
payment, with one single registration to use the platform. The transaction cost savings are 
estimated at 4.5 billion US$ per year. It is high ly centralised and fully interconnected with 
other e-Government elements and databases in Korea, for instance the acquisition of 
certificates through queries direct ly from KONEPS to the relevant  administration. It is also 
interconnected with banks for the e-Payment phase, allowing fast payments. The system 
provides high degrees of security, with en cryption of data and advanced signature 
requirements, for example through the biom etric identification of signatories. Full 
transparency is ensured through real-time pr ocess tracking. KONEPS is a comprehensive 
communication system enabling the use of e-Catal ogues, electronic marketplaces, features for 
CPBs, and also feeds from other e-Government  databases such as the one for taxation. 
KONEPS as communication interface could, to some extent, be compared to the infrastructure being developed by PEPPOL, but goes much furthe r in terms of data acq uisition and tools.  
The central government platform of Chile, ChileCompra
39, is another example of a successful 
platform. It manages transaction volumes of 60 billion US$ per year, which corresponds to 
3.5% of GDP. The system manages around 500,000 public tenders per year, federating 85,000 
active suppliers. The current prio rity of ChileCompra is to dr amatically incr ease the use of 
electronic catalogues. The main asset of the syst em is that it allows a comprehensive spend 
analysis, which allows procurers to better plan their purchasing process,  to provide suppliers 
with better market information and to focus c ontrol agencies on high risk processes. Savings 
                                                 
38 http://koneps.go.kr/ 
39 http://www.chilecompra.cl/ 
 
EN 54   EN calculations are based on a comparison of intern al and external marketplace prices. To date, 
they amount to more than 140 billion US$, half on  prices paid and half on transaction costs. 
The Canadian Merx40 platform is a good example of the diffusion of cross-border 
opportunities and of the interrelations between public and private procurements. The first 
element to note is that due to the bilingual na ture of Canada, the Merx platform is fully 
available both in French and English, and pub lic contracts notices are available in both 
languages. It is open both to public and privat e procurement. Nine governments of Canada 
(out of 13 provinces and territories) and the federal government participate in Merx. Under 
the tab "U.S. tenders", the plat form makes available thousands of public procurement notices 
from U.S. government agencies, at federal, st ate and local levels. The "U.S. tenders" section 
of the platform links back to Canadian public tenders, so that the platform is fully operable 
across the border and can be used equally by US and Canadian operators. The existence of 
such a cross-border platform can partially be explained by the fact that Mediagrif41, the 
company running the Merx platform, also r uns the Government contracts USA portal42 and 
the four platforms under this portal. This example may show that the private sector has a particular card to play in term  of cross border interoperability when they operate services in 
the public interest. 
Much work has been done by the Multi-lateral  Development Banks (MDBs) who promote the 
use of e-Procurement, particularly in relati on to requirements for anti-fraud and corruption 
measures. Often their funding is tied to the introduction of such systems. The MDBs are 
active in South America, but 10 EU countries  are also eligible for their assistance. 
5.10. Summary – where are we today? 
The 2004 Action Plan permitted national, regional and other authorities to develop solutions 
and introduce e-Procurement, in the way best su ited to them, subject to compliance with the 
legal framework and the guidance provided. So me Member States have taken steps to 
normalise the use of e-Procurement within thei r borders, setting out clear rules which state 
exactly when, or when not, e-Procurement must be used. 
Other than TED (Tenders Electron ic Daily – the electronic notification database put in place 
to allow contracting authorities to publicise their a bove threshold tenders at EU level), no EU 
level, centralised infrastructure was provided. Many of the measures in the Action Plan were 
"soft law" - designed to promot e discussion and debate; to shar e studies or experience in 
developing such systems and disseminate best practise. 
This policy of "letting 1000 flowers bloom" was designed to encourage creativity and 
innovation in an emerging market, where no mature  standards or technological solutions had 
yet emerged. Both the benefits and the risks of  this strategy have now crystallised. This 
evaluation has shown that much progress has been made since 2004. Significant efforts and 
progress have been made by some contract ing authorities, economic operators, Central 
Purchasing Bodies and Member States. Grea t progress has been made in developing 
electronic applications capable of supporting most/all phas es of procurement procedures. 
Some Member States or regions have put in  place e-Procurement systems which can support 
'straight through electronic procurement' proce sses – at least for purchases of standard 
                                                
 
40 http://www.merx.com/ 
41 http://www.mediagrif.com/gove rnment-opportun ities-en.jsp 
42 http://www.governmentcontractsusa.com/index-en.jsp 
 
EN 55   EN supplies and services. These efforts notwith standing, overall take-up both within most 
countries and across the EU as  a whole, remains low.  
Technology has not provided the e xpected (high tech) solutions to all procedural steps. In 
some cases, progress has resulted from a more pragmatic approach  – in the form of practical 
'workarounds' involving less technically dema nding solutions or combining on/off-line 
communication. Nonetheless, these solutions are valid – they simp ly provide alternative ways 
to reach the end result. Certain limits to "str aight through e-Procurem ent" have also been 
identified e.g. difficulties in using automated evaluation approaches to complex purchases; 
absence of a time-stamping system which is accepted EU wide. 
Our assessment (based on examination of design and requirements for access to systems, and 
PEPPOL preparatory work) is that in toda y's market, economic operators wishing to 
participate in on-line procurement procedures in other Member States will be faced with 
practical, technical and administrative obstacles . National/regional e-Procurement procedures 
are designed by reference to local administra tive or technical practices which may differ 
significantly. As a result, despite the great progress at national level, little concrete progress 
has been made towards unhindered, cro ss-border electroni c procurement.  
6. HOW HAS THE ACTION PLAN CONTRIBUTED TO THIS PROGRESS ? 
The 31 measures of the Action Plan covered a wide range of actions designed to accelerate 
adoption and ensure access (partly through th e provision of common building blocks) to e-
Procurement. They were also intended to a ddress the high risks of  market fragmentation 
which could occur if the transfer  to electronic systems was carri ed out in an inappropriate / 
uncoordinated manner. There was widespread  awareness that th e introduction of e-
Procurement could lead to th e creation and maintenance of a range of lega l, policy and 
technological barriers. Member States, candidate countries and businesses were prepared to 
act accordingly, to ensure that such a situation was avoided.  
By mid 2010, 13 of the 31 measures had been completed (including those where no final 
outcome has been achieved, but a ll the actions expected in the given period were completed), 
three were partially completed (i.e. some acti on has been undertaken but at present little 
advance is being made), 13 were on-going and th ree had been delayed. The sections below 
present the developments that have occurred  and compare to the expectations of 2004 (by 
reference to the Intervention Logics drawn up for each objective). They also assess, in as 
objective a manner as possible, how  the Action Plan has contributed to the progress that has 
been made. It is however difficult to judge in  absolute terms how far today’s e-Procurement 
market has been influenced by the measures undertaken via the Acti on Plan, particularly 
given the data constraints, and some degree of subjectivity is inevitable. Many of the actions 
related to the provision of studi es, or contributing to the development of solutions – measures 
which it is difficult to prove or associate directly  with the results visible in the current market. 
The more detailed background and evidence for so me of these assessments is provided in the 
Siemens-time.lex report. 
Whilst each action was intended to assist a particular objective, it is clear that there is a 
certain amount of synergy and interaction between the measures and the results/impacts 
obtained. In the following sections, for each objective, the initial results and achievements due to the (grouped) actions are presented first an d then the combined effects and longer term 
impacts are discussed in a concluding section. Each section begins with a table summarising 
 
EN 56   EN the various measures, the issues they were expect ed to address and the current state of play in 
relation to the measure.  
6.1. Ensure a well functioning Internal Mark et in electronic public procurement 
The actions carried out under this  first objective were split unde r four headings, each of which 
is considered in more detail below. The Intervention Logic for this objective is provided in Annex VI. The actions address a range of areas, including legal, technical and infrastructure. 
6.1.1.  Implementing the legal fram ework correctly and on tim e – measures and results 
Table 11 - Measures relating to the im plementation of the legal framework 
Action Plan measure Issues to be addressed State of Play 
Commission to issue 
interpretative document on the 
new rules on electronic public procurement Legal Completed 
- Commission Staff Working 
Document (SEC 959 of 8.7.2005; EN only) 
Commission to make online 
training demonstrators 
available, allowing CAs and EOs to familiarise with new e-
proc provisions and tools Technical 
Trust 
Resistance to change Lack of understanding of 
benefits  
Doubts on feasibility 
Accessibility 
Set up a reference model Completed 
- 2005: Applications available on 
IDABC
43 website44 
- helpdesk services (2005-2009)  
Commission to provide 
appropriate assistance to 
Member States in transposing 
the new legal provisions Legal Completed   
- e-Procurement Working Group 
(ePWG) of the Advisory 
Committee for Public Contracts, meetings (from 2003) 
- DG MARKT website 
Source: DG MARKT 
To avoid barriers to competition and distortion of markets the Action Plan considered it was 
very important that the 2004 Dir ectives were adopted in a tim ely and correct manner. This 
was also expected to encourage and assist  the early adoption and effective use of e-
Procurement by Economic Operators.  
                                                 
43 Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and 
Citizens. A Commission programme that ran between 2005 and 2009, developing recommendations 
and, solutions and providing services helping Euro pean public services to communicate electronically 
44 http://ec.europa.eu/idabc   
 
EN 57   EN While the Action Plan did not sp ecify a particular approach to transposition, it aimed to 
facilitate the understanding of the legal framework and to enc ourage the appropriate related 
exchange of views with the Member States when their transpositio n provisions were at 
drafting stage. Although delayed in some count ries, in general the transposition of the 2004 
Directives has been done within a reasonable timescale - 11 Member States transposed by the 
deadline and for those which were late, the average transposition delay compared to what was expected in 2004 was around 14 months. To-date no evidence has been found of serious 
errors in transposition.  
The assistance and guidance provided by the Commission has played a positive part in 
achieving this outcome. It would appear that Me mber States have made extensive use of the 
information provided and have sought further clarif ication and assistance from the Services of 
the Commission as necessary. Of the 22 Member States who replied to  the Ernst and Young 
questionnaire addressed to policy making bodie s, 17 said that EU rules and functional 
requirements had influenced their choices wh en defining policy for the adoption of e-
Procurement systems and tools in their country.  
Whilst assistance is generally provided to support the adoption of new legislation, by 
formalising and publicising these measures an d emphasising the importance of achieving a 
correct and timely transposition the Action Plan probably managed to obtain greater effort and 
compliance. Certainly, transposition of the 2004 Directives occurred mo re speedily than for 
the previous set of Directives, where there was no Action Plan. 
However, this does not mean that all legal issues have been resolved. As we saw in section 
5.2.6, Member States have introduced gold-plating for several tools e.g. DPS and e-Auctions 
because they felt the Directives plus existing guidance did not provide sufficient detail. This gold-plating could lead to some confusion, creat ing as it does differe nt conditions for using 
such tools e.g. specifying the type of purchase permitted and could ultimately lead to some 
incompatibility between systems. For example,  the Siemens-time.lex study showed that in 
France e-Auctions can only be used for purchases of goods (i.e. not permitted for services and works) over €133,000 for state procurements and over €206,000 for defence; in Poland they are permitted for all types of purchase but the value must be below €60,000.  
As well as these specific issues, there are mo re general discrepancies appearing between 
Member States relating to the use of e-Procurem ent. In some Member States e-Procurement is 
optional, in others the use of certain tools or phases is obligatory, either for all CAs (e.g. 
Portugal) or in particular circumstances. For example in France the use of e-Procurement for 
ICT contracts over €90,000 has been mandatory si nce the start of 2010; Austria has made it 
mandatory for federal agencies to use central fr amework contracts offered via the portal of the 
Federal Procurement Company. Another possibly im portant difference relate s to the fact that 
a growing number of platforms and functionaliti es are provided by third parties, who have not 
traditionally been a key actor in procurement.  Hence there may be some future need to 
consider whether it might be necessary to set clearer conditions for the use of e-Procurement 
and to define some of the obligations re lating to the provision and operation of such 
platforms.  
 
EN 58   EN Some concerns have also been raised in relati on to complementary legisl ation – particularly in 
relation to the different approaches  to using and accepting e-Signatures45 but also relating to 
issues affecting e-Invoicing (w here different national rules ma ke it impossible to seamlessly 
exchange electronic documents across the EU) and VAT. 
Hence although today we have a common legal framework, differences exist in relation 
to the application and scope of certain e- Procurement functionalities and there may be 
some emerging issues relating to the way in which e-Procurement infrastructure is 
provided. This means that there are still some legal issues which need to be addressed.  
The provision of on-line demonstrators appears to have been helpful – based on an analysis of 
hits to the DG MARKT website, the on-line re ports have been widely accessed and a 
helpdesk service was provided from 2005-2009. Ma ny of the sites that have been reviewed 
appear to have developed broadl y in line with the recommendations presented. This is not to 
say that these demonstrators have been the only influence and much of the information 
provided may have seemed "common sens e" to developers. However this study46 together 
with other relevant documents, seems to have  provided a useful refe rence point and should 
have helped to address initial  worries, such as a lack of  technical knowledge; doubts on the 
feasibility of e-Procurement and perhaps also  some of the initial resistance to change. The 
increase in the number of platforms between 2004 and 2010 and the degree of 
functionality now possible in some of thes e systems shows that e-Procurement systems 
are feasible, at least within the national cont ext and many of the technical issues can now 
be addressed. However, this does not mean that common, widely accessible, interoperable solutions have been adopted in all countries and issues relating to access 
and trust still remain. 
In terms of the early adoption and effective us e by EOs, it is difficult to draw any concrete 
conclusions, as little hard evidence is avai lable at present (see section 6.2.2 for further 
discussion on increased competition). There are some indications that participation has 
increased – several countries have indicated th at there are now more bidders per electronic 
tender and many of the portals listed in Annex VII show that  large numbers of EOs are 
registered with them. There is also some  anecdotal evidence from discussions with 
practitioners that e-Notification and the in creased ability to fi nd opportunities on-line is 
making at least these early phases attractive. Ho wever as discussed in chapter 5 many of the 
expected efficiencies relating to re-usable fo rmats and standardisatio n have not yet been 
achieved. Without doubt, the differences which exist between the various systems can 
generate efficiency problems and costs to EOs wishing to submit bids to different CAs 
using different e-Procurement systems.  
There is also some feedback from Member St ates through the various EU level committees 
about continued inertia/ resistance to cha nge on the part of both EOs and CAs. When 
considering the success of the two one-way pha ses of e-Procurement – e-Notification and e-
Access - it is interes ting to consider that  these are also the only phases where the 2004 
Directives introduce clear incentives for their use,  at least by the CA. e-Notification is legally 
permitted to speed up the process of publica tion benefiting both CAs and EOs; e-Access, 
where it is available 24/7, legally permits th e CA to shorten the deadline for submission 
                                                
 
45 Study on mutual recognition of e-Signatures: update  of country profiles, IDABC, produced by Siemens-
time.lex, available at http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=32436  
46 Functional requirements for conducting e-Procurement under the EU framework, available at 
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=22191  
 
EN 59   EN (although this could be considered a negative by  an EO who would have preferred more time 
to prepare a bid). In considering how best to overcome this inertia, it may well be worth 
reflecting on other incentives which can be put  in place, legally or otherwise, which may 
present clear benefits to CAs and/or EOs. 
6.1.2.  Completing the legal framework by the appropriate basic tools – measures and 
results 
Table 12 - Measures for completing the legal framework by the appropriate basic tools 
Action Plan measure  Issues to be addressed  State of Play 
Commission to adopt new 
Standard Forms for 
procurement notices taking account of new procedures + 
the use of electronic means of 
communication Standardisation 
Transparency 
Publicity/dissemination  Cross-border 
Common understanding Completed 
- Regulation N°1564/2005 of 7 
September 2005 on Standard Forms
47 
Commission to present proposals for revision of the Common Procurement 
Vocabulary (CPV)  Standardisation 
Cross-border Interoperability 
Common understanding Completed 
- Regulation N°213/2008 of 28 
November 2007 amending CPV
48 
Commission to present Blueprint for a fully electronic 
system for the collection and 
publication of procurement notices on TED Transparency 
Accessibility 
Automation (Simplification) 
Cross-border Completed  
- Feasibility study  completed 
July 2007 ( 'Mandatory electronic 
transmission of procurement 
notices for publication' )
49 
Member States to implement 
fully electronic systems at 
national level including 
appropriate tools for automated collection + publishing in TED Transparency 
Accessibility 
Automation (Simplification) On-going  
 
Source: DG MARKT 
The overall title for this section is perhaps mi sleading as three of the actions focus on the 
basic tools required for th e first phase of e-Procurement – e- Notification – at European level. 
In 2004, 90% of the notices sent to TED were received on paper and, as stated in the third 
measure under this heading, it was felt that decisi ve action should be take n to develop a “fully 
                                                 
47 The standard forms are availa ble online at SIMAP website ( http://simap.europa.eu ) 
48 The old and new CPV versions are available online at SIMAP website ( http://simap.europa.eu ) 
49 Available at DG MARKT website http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-
procurement_en.htm#feasability  
 
EN 60   EN electronic system for the colle ction and publication of procurement notices on TED” (to be 
precise, the measure calls for the development of  a "blueprint", so by actually providing the 
system, the Commission has gone fu rther than origina lly requested). The actions relating to 
the creation and use of a common infrastructure for e-Notificati on have been very successful. 
There is now a single, accepted and well used system for the publication of above threshold notices across the EU, supported by  compatible infrastructure at  national level. In 2009 just 
over 90% of forms sent to TED were received el ectronically and in a structured format. Over 
the period there has been an increase in the ab solute number of contract notices published on 
TED and also in the use of e-Senders and e-Notices. As can be seen from the graph below, figures vary by country,  but in general use is high and t hose countries with lower publication 
figures in 2009 have made signi ficant improvements d. This doe s not mean however that all 
the procurement opportunities available at any one time can seamlessly be accessed from a single entry point. In fact, publ ication of notices for below threshold procurement is not 
regulated and there is not systematic centralisat ion or interconnection of information sources. 
Figure 7 - e-Notification growth over time 
Structured data submitted electronically to TED
-20020406080100
SI
LT
RO
MT
CZ
FR
FI
BG
DK
PL
AT
SK
LU
UK
IE
CY
SE
IT
NL
PT
ES
BE
DE
HU
GR
EE
LV
CountryPercentage
Growth 2009-2006 2009 % of total notices
 
Source: DG MARKT based on data provided by DG OP 
Data is now provided in a more consistent ma nner due to the use of the standard forms and 
EOs can also search for opportunities by using CP V codes, which are widely used within the 
EU. The CPV has also enjoyed some international success – it has been tr anslated into several 
languages, including Russian and Ar abic and is voluntarily used by a range of third parties. 
Whilst this has lead to a mark ed increase in transparency, including across borders, caution 
needs to be taken in claiming “absolute” or “complete” transparency.  
 
EN 61   EN Firstly, not all EOs know about or choose to use TED; some prefer to look for national 
opportunities (frequently below threshold) by  accessing individual CA websites and portals 
for information. The availability indicato r, created as part of DG INFSO’s 2009 
benchmarking exercise50, produced results which were stro ngly contested by some Member 
States who felt that their scores were too lo w as their individual na tional set-up had not 
properly been taken into consider ation, but which could also be in terpreted as showing that at 
a national level transparency and information about the existing structures may not be so 
good. Some countries have a cent ralised system (which may be public or private) which 
publishes all the calls for tender;  others operate on a more decentralised basis, with one or 
more notification hubs, or with  notices published on individual CA sites. The basic structure 
of publication services is not always signpos ted which can lead to confusion and missed 
opportunities. Depending on the model used and wh ether there is the habit of publicising and 
providing links to these various centralised  notification sites on national/regional/local 
portals, this may adversely affect not just busin esses coming from a different country, but also 
national operators. In practice, EOs can end up going through many sites searching for 
relevant tenders, which is not very efficient.  
The fourth action was much wider and complex in  scope than many others , relating as it did 
to the introduction of full e-Procurement system s. However it has been completed to a certain 
extent and not just in terms of e-Notificati on, where TED perhaps stands out as the only 
common, centralised infrastructure currently provided at EU level.  As seen in sections 0 and 
5.4.3 almost all countries now have some infrastructure providing e-Procurement 
systems – but these systems are very varied in terms of: the phases and tools on offer; 
the entities that can use them; how they a re used; and in the degree of technological 
sophistication involved.  
On first glance, there is reason to celebrate – 24 out of 27 Member States now support the 
phases up to e-Submission, with 17 also pr oviding systems capable of conduction e-
Evaluation and e-Award. But these figures obsc ure a larger failure – although there are 
systems available which provide the potential  for conducting procurements electronically, 
they are not necessarily open to all businesses or  even Contracting Authorities and the overall 
use (in terms of number and valu e of contracts concluded) is low. Apart from in Portugal, 
where e-Procurement is mandatory in the pre-award phases for all CAs and hence usage is nearly 100%, rates in other countries are low. As has been repeated several times, e-
Procurement use figures are no t easily available for many countries (see section 6.2 for 
discussion of actions relating to  statistical data collection a nd monitoring) but where they 
have been estimated they are generally  below 5% of the national total.  
Some of these difficulties should perhaps ha ve been anticipated or better acknowledged. 
There are well known differences between the countries involved which may affect their 
approach to e-Procurement and sometimes make it more difficult to adopt. For example, large 
countries with many contracting entities face di fferent problems to smaller ones with fewer, 
not least in terms of providing  and affording training. Some c ountries already have fairly 
centralised procurement and he nce may find it easy to introdu ce one or a small number of e-
Procurement portals; in countries with a more decentralised  approach, many por tals are likely 
to spring up bringing with them further i ssues relating to access, standardisation and 
interoperability. 
                                                
 
50 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/benchmarking/index_en.htm#e-
Government_Benchmarking_Reports   
 
EN 62   EN Whilst the work undertaken rela ting to the development of TED  and e-Notification can be 
attributed to the measures of the Action Plan, it is less clear what influence the Action Plan 
has had on the development of national e-Proc urement systems. Some development would 
have occurred anyhow – 17 countries were already developing systems prior to 2004. 
However, others were not, and by encouraging discussion, promoting best practice/ 
providing reference studies, it is fair to assu me that the Action Plan has contributed to 
some degree, by at least encouraging this wider development. However there are many issues still to be addressed – they incl ude: problems relating to improving access 
particularly across borders; the conti nuing lack of common standards and 
understanding; and also the need for increase d simplification and interoperability.  
6.1.3.  Removing / preventing barriers in carry ing public procurement procedures 
electronically – measures and results 
Table 13 - Measures intended to remove/prevent  barriers to carrying out e-Procurement 
Action Plan measure  Issues to be addressed  State of Play  
Member States and 
Commission test, refine and 
validate results of IDA common 
functional requirements for e-
Procurement systems Legal 
Accessibility 
Cross-border 
Technical 
Dissemination of best practices Common understanding Completed  
- Report on Preliminary 
Functional Requirements  for e-
Procurement (03/2005) 
- Report on Preliminary 
Functional Requirements for e-Catalogues  (12/2007)
51 
Member States to review 
whether all operational e-
Procurement schemes have been adjusted to the 
requirements of the Directives Legal 
Accessibility 
Cross-border Technical 
Common understanding On-going 
 
Member States introduce 
national accreditation schemes to verify compliance of e-
tendering systems with legal 
framework Legal 
Trust Accessibility 
Policy 
Cross-border On-going 
 
                                                 
51 Available at DG MARKT website http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-
procurement_en.htm#feasability  
 
EN 63   EN Action Plan measure  Issues to be addressed  State of Play  
Member States and 
Commission consider through 
a feasibility study whether to introduce a European 
compliance verification scheme Legal 
Trust 
Policy Cross-border Completed 
- Feasibility study on Common 
Compliance Verification mechanisms, completed 07/2007
51 
Commission proposes an 
action under IDABC 
programme to help Member States co-ordinate 
implementing the use of 
advanced qualified signature to resolve interoperability 
problems  Authentication 
Interoperability 
Cross-border Completed 52 
 
Member States apply, if required 
by national law, interoperable 
qualified e-Signatures Authentication 
Cross-border Interoperability On-going 
 
Source: DG MARKT 
There was considerable concern in 2004, particul arly amongst businesses, that systems would 
be developed based on inappropriate designs or  to incompatible IT standards, making it 
increasingly difficult for suppliers to access the different systems and/or increasing the costs 
of participation. The first four measures in this  group were expected to address these concerns 
by testing and validating a set of common functional requiremen ts complemented by review 
and compliance mechanisms. It is hard to judge the impact of these actions, as much of 
the work undertaken to review and "accredit" sy stems has been done at national level 
and little is available to assess how consistently  and thoroughly this has been done across 
the EU. 
According to the information collected by Siemens-time.lex it is difficult to know how well 
Member States have assessed the compliance of operational systems. At the time of the 2007 
study into compliance verification, 48% of Member States had an official verification strategy 
employing either an independent 3rd party or a nationally recognised central agency to 
produce the assessment. A small number of c ountries (11%) had no such strategy. The study 
presented a range of recommendations on how  to approach the idea of a European 
Compliance Verification scheme – with refere nce scenarios covering a “lite” approach 
(voluntary, resulting in a quality  label); a system based on nati onal bodies; and, the possibility 
to create a European Agency with European Standards. No decision has yet been taken on how to proceed. 
Again, it is likely that the functional requirement s have been used – they have been widely 
accessed (over 2000 hits on the DG MARKT page s in the period April 2008 to April 2010) 
and should have saved their readers' time in assessing and analysing va rious elements. It is 
                                                
 
52 EU Action Plan for interoperable e-Signatures and e-Auth entication has been adopted (2008), EC inter-
service group has been set up 
 
EN 64   EN probably not a coincidence that most of the s ites reviewed for this evaluation appear to 
follow, at least in general terms, these re quirements. The information provided was very 
detailed and developers repeating the exercise  would probably come up with very similar 
results. However, differences in approach have been iden tified – particularly in relation 
to authentication and accessibility. 
Two further measures addressed issues rela ting to the use of in teroperable electronic 
signatures and particularly "qualified" signature s as the reference point for authentication and 
the integrity of business transactions. Authentica tion is a key element in several stages of the 
e-Procurement process. 
The procurement directives give CAs the fr eedom to chose the appropriate method of 
authentication in e-procurement procedures but explicitly encourage use of electronic 
signatures, in particular advanced electronic si gnatures. This approach gave rise to Member 
States setting different levels of requirements for authentication, ranging from a light user-ID 
and password-based model up to qu alified electronic signatures. There is also a problem of 
definition – whilst some Member States specif y unambiguously the type of e-Signature (e.g. 
advanced based on a qualified certif icate), others just ask for an  e-Signature (which could be 
any of the four levels) or an advanced signa ture (which may or may not require a qualified 
certificate). So even if a country  has made it mandatory to use an  e-Signature (the situation in 
18 countries of which 16 are Member  States), it is not always clear what is being requested or 
more importantly perhaps, what can be accepte d. 11 other countries (i ncluding nine Member 
States) permit the CA to decide on a case by case basis whether to request an electronic 
signature whilst two Member States impose no e-Signature requirements. 
While the light solution does not pose cross-border interoperabi lity problems, the different 
national schemes enforced by electronic signatures create, in the majority of cases, the situation where a tender electr onically signed by an economic ope rator in one country cannot 
be verified by a contracting authority in another country. 
Recognising this problem, the Action Plan emphasised the use of qualified electronic 
signatures that, being in large part defi ned by the directive on electronic signatures
53 offered a 
reasonable cross-border interopera bility perspective. However, the vision of the Action Plan 
has not yet materialised due to the different  approaches taken in implementing electronic 
signature standards in th e various Member States. 
Over this period, the Commission has been invol ved in a range of studi es relating to this 
issue. DG MARKT's involvement includes cont ributing to the 2008 e-Signatures Action Plan 
and work carried out by DGs DIGIT and INFSO. Another promising initiative is the work 
being developed under the PEPPOL module addressing e-Signatures . In this area the PEPPOL 
project is trying to create a distributed certif icate-validation service that is capable of 
validating electronic signature s, particularly advanced signatures based on qualified 
certificates. For further information, see the box describing PEPPOL belo w. Finally, greater 
degrees of interoperability a nd acceptance across borders should be obtained within the recent 
initiative, under the aegis of the Services Direc tive, to introduce a central "trust list", with 
links to national "trusted lists" of certification-service providers issuing qualified certificates. 
                                                 
53 E-Signatures Directive 19 99/93/EC , available at http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriSer v.do?uri=CELEX:31999L0093:en:HTML  
 
EN 65   EN In the meantime, the issue of cross-border authentication is still unresolved. In terms of 
authentication it is perhaps most interesting to  note that in countries  which have adopted a 
lighter approach to the technology required, posi ng lesser or no technical barrier to cross-
border accessibility, no instances of security being breached have been reported so far. 
Therefore it is fair to say that, although progress towards greater degrees of 
interoperability and acceptance across borders  can possibly be expected in the near 
future, the goals of the Action Plan h ave not been achieved in this area. 
Hence there is neither greater clarity nor much  increase in interoperability and with the 
growth of use, the number of solutions reque sted by particular CAs/portals has multiplied. In 
this instance it could be fair to say that the interoperability barriers across countries 
resulting from the use of e-Signatures have  actually increased rather than decreased.  At 
present, the lack of interopera ble e-Signatures (of any type) is probably the greatest blocking 
factor to EU-wide e-Procurement and e- Government services in general.  
PEPPOL – Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line54 
PEPPOL is a major cross-border e-procuremen t project run by public-s ector organisations 
from various EU countries and co-funded by the European Commi ssion. PEPPOL partners 
have joined forces to set up a large-scale, standa rds-based IT infrastructure and services to set 
up and run e-procurement operations across Europe. 
The project has created a comprehensive, cohere nt set of technical sp ecifications and open 
software components which will then be integrated  within the IT infrastructure of the partner 
organisations to support the exchange of e-procurement business transactions. These 
specifications cover e-ordering and e-invoic ing in the post-award ing phases and provide 
building blocks towards the creation of e-cat alogues, signature valid ation and the Virtual 
Company Dossier (VCD) which can be widely us ed by system planners and designers to set 
up pre-awarding operations. 
At the heart of the PEPPOL architecture is a transport network, enabling e-procurement 
business partners to connect their own IT res ources to perform secure and reliable exchanges 
of business documents. It is ex pected that PEPPOL interconnec tion services will be taken up 
by market players and will be widely offered to  the business community in all the countries 
on a commercial basis.  
Where possible, all PEPPOL specifications are defined drawing on existing standards. In 
areas where standards do not yet exist, PEPPOL partners work in clos e collaboration with the 
standards bodies in order to make sure that al l new specifications are ta ken up in the standard 
making process. 
Source: DG MARKT 
In terms of the results of these six actions, it is  clear that there can be  no assurance that the 
systems which have been introduced in th e various countries are based on a common 
understanding of the European framework. Whilst there may be some grounds to believe 
that there is a certain degree of consis tency in relation to legal compliance, 
technologically there is little doubt that wi thin the EU different systems have been 
                                                 
54 See www.peppol.eu  for further information 
 
EN 66   EN developed to different requirements and sta ndards with the resultant negative impacts 
on authentication and intero perability between systems.  Generally within a country it 
can be inferred that the available systems are based on similar principles and processes 
and can interact to some degree, or that the infrastructure has some commonality. On a 
cross-border basis the picture is bleaker – ex amples of functioning interoperability are 
limited and mainly rely on solutions being found to integrate supp ort for non-national 
solutions which meet the applicable national standards. For example, Austria can accept e-
Signatures created using Belgian, Italian and Slovenian electronic id entification cards; in 
Norway the e-Tendering platform can also accep t the e-Signatures used for the (private) BBS 
Validation Authority; in Denmark and Slovakia businesses are emailed a compliant advanced 
signature certificate after registration.  
6.1.4.  Detecting and addressing interoperability pr oblems over time – measures and results 
Table 14 - Measures to detect and address interoperability issues 
Action Plan measure  Issues to be addressed  State of Play  
CEN / ISSS completes gap 
analysis on interoperability 
needs for effective e-
Procurement Interoperability 
Accessibility 
Cross-border Completed  
- CEN Workshop Agreement 
CWA 15236:200555  
Commission proposes to continue activities on  
e-Procurement under the IDABC programme for 
exchange and discussion on 
interoperability issues and monitoring of Member States' 
developments Interoperability 
Accessibility 
Cross-border Policy 
Dissemination of best practices Completed  
Commission and Member 
States promote standardisation activities at European level and 
liaise with international 
standardisation bodies Standardisation 
Interoperability Cross-border 
Accessibility 
Policy Dissemination of best practices On-going56  
Source: DG MARKT 
                                                 
55 Analysis of standardization requirements and standardization gaps for e-Procurement in Europe , 
available at CEN website ftp://ftp.cenorm.be/PUBLIC/CWAs/e -Europe/eProc/cwa15236-00-2005-
Feb.pdf   
56 COM has successfully promoted standardisation over  the last years. Various standardisation activities 
have been completed by CEN and OASIS on XML au tomated messaging. Development of standards is 
still on-going. 
 
EN 67   EN Standardisation 
E-procurement involves the exch ange of business tr ansactions over a ne twork. This requires 
precisely defined interfaces at both ends of th e exchange. It is not just about technical 
requirements: the semantics and all the elements  of the transactions have to be agreed upon. 
For each transaction, each single business exchange needs to be defined. For each business 
exchange an agreement is needed on the role  of the parties involve d, the business rules and 
the data to be exchanged. As a result three dist inct interoperability levels can be defined:  
(1) At the business level, interoperability re quires an agreement on business processes and 
semantic document models;  
(2) At the syntax level, it involves the use of structured documents compliant with 
schemas from standards such as UN/CEFA CT XML and OASIS Universal Business 
Language; and 
(3) At the technical level, it implies common requirements such as the use of a document 
transport infrastructure.  
Standardisation in the e-Procurement domain is therefore complex in its own right. The 
scenario is further complicated because at pr esent a large number of competing standards 
exist in some areas, whilst there is a substantia l lack of agreed specifi cations in other areas.  
Three main lines of standardisation are currently underway addressing the various 
standardisation requirements. These are: 
• The Universal Business Language (UBL) is an XML based library of common business 
documents defined and maintained by OASIS, a not-for-profit consortium that drives the 
development, convergence and adoption of op en standards for the global information 
society.  
• ebXML (an open, XML-based infrastructure de signed for global use of electronic business 
information) and UN/EDIFACT (covering the st ructured transmission of data between 
organisations by electronic means) are intern ational standards maintained by the United 
Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business, (UN/CEFACT). 
• Finally, CEN (one of the European standards-making bodies) is committed to profiling 
existing e-business in order to consistently address all the interoperability levels for 
business transactions discussed above. To carry out such work, the BII (Business 
Interoperability Interfaces) wo rkshop has been set up, focussing on post-award phases. It 
concentrates on the semantics of the public procurement business pr ocesses built by XML 
based vocabularies as specified by UBL 2.0 a nd UN/CEFACT core components, aiming at 
international convergence. The BII Workshop coordinates with other CEN developments, 
such as the workshop on 'Multilingual e-Ca taloguing and e-Classifi cation in e-Business' 
(WS/eCAT). This work aims to design th e architecture of a multi-user, multilingual 
catalogue platform that can be used by any company to store and present its products. 
Currently, discussion is under way to map the four major existing product classification 
systems (UNSPSC, eCl@ss, GPC and CPV) for use within the catalogue. 
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex report 
 
EN 68   EN These three measures were expected to first id entify and then address ot her issues relating to 
interoperability as the market developed. Agai n, many studies and resear ch projects have been 
initiated in relation to standard isation, either commissioned dir ectly by the Services of the 
Commission or to which the Services have contributed57. It should also be noted that 
"interoperability" c overs a wide range of issues and is more relevant to certain tools and 
phases.  
Whilst it is fair to infer that these acti ons have had some impa ct on improving the 
understanding of interoperabili ty issues, it is not possib le to say how much these 
programmes have influenced the current state of play . Certainly the degree of 
interoperability between Member States ' e-Procurement systems remains low and 
convergence to common sets of standards ha s been slow. The PEPPOL Standard Basic e-
Ordering report58 found that local contexts are highly in fluential in determining the format 
used and that the lack of common standard s has (negatively) affected cross-border 
interoperability. A certain trend towards UBL based standardisation is emerging in the post-
award phases of e-Ordering and e-Invoicing.  
This result should perhaps not be surprising – e-Procurement is a complex topic, covering a 
wide range of issues. However it would appear that the Action Plan underestimated the efforts 
required and perhaps took too fl exible approach to how such standardisation could be 
achieved – expecting market developments to drive the move towards greater standardisation, without any stronger guidance or infl uence from other external sources. At present there are 
still too many standards and their content is too broad.  On the other hand, the measures in 
the Action Plan were suitably widely drawn that they can claim some causality in relation to 
the limited success that has been achieved in certain areas. 
6.1.5.  Wider impacts of the me asures under Objective 1 
Taken as a whole, the measures carried out under this objective have probably had some 
influence on the progress made toward s several of the results expected – particularly in 
relation to the timely and accurate implementation of the 2004 Directives and the creation of a 
common EU infrastructure for e-Notices supported by compatible national level systems. Their impact is less obvious in relation to the creation of national e-Procurement systems 
which are based on a common unde rstanding; increased  use of e-Procurement; increased use 
of qualified e-Signatures; increased understandi ng and greater interoperability; and increased 
standardisation. Whilst many legal barriers may have  been avoided, there are still some 
legal issues which need to be addressed and hence the desired impact of no legal barriers 
has not been achieved.  Additionally, it is not clear that a ll new tools are being used correctly 
– some further legal clarifica tion may be necessary and some EU wide level of system 
validation may be desirable.  
In terms of technical barriers, it is likely that no barriers have actually been removed on 
an EU-wide level and it is possible the situation has actually got worse  as a result of the 
development of more systems across the EU. Given the problems with interoperability and 
standardisation identified in the state of play, it cannot be claimed that the desired 
impacts resulting from the introduction of systems which have few technical barriers to 
                                                
 
57 See bibliography 
58 http://www.peppol.eu/work_in_progre ss/wp4-eordering/results/d4.1-st andard-basic-eordering-format-
and-data-structure/eordering-standard-bas ic-eordering-format-and-data-structure   
 
EN 69   EN cross-border procurement and which actually permit increased cross-border 
transactions have been achieved. There may also be legal ramifications to these technical 
developments which may require further considerations. 
In the longer term, some of these action s are helping to improve transparency.  The 
electronic publication of notices and standard information has help ed increase the availability 
and ease of access to procurement, although some issues, often relating to whether information is provided in a centralised or de-centralised manner still exist. Although figures 
for participation are not widely available it can be inferred that in some instances, 
participation has increased and t hus potentially competition also.  Certainly several e-
Procurement portals and case studies advertis e the significant savings which they are 
achieving (see section 5.8).  
Levels of confidence and security vary,  depending on the system in place and the 
experience of users. Costs rela ted to security may have incr eased, particularly in those 
instances where the so lutions adopted require quite hi gh levels of IT knowledge and 
investment. Given the limited information ava ilable on actual use of e-Procurement (see 
section 5.5) it can be inferred that many EOs an d CAs have yet to use e-Procurement and may 
still have concerns which need to be addresse d. Those that have used systems have mixed 
feelings – for some it is a good experience, savi ng time and effort, for ot hers, particularly in 
countries where e-Procurement systems are still fa irly basic, it is not sufficiently mainstream 
as to be worth the effort. From the pictur e provided above (see chapter 5), a certain 
momentum is building; use and experience with such systems, while currently modest, may 
yet reach critical mass. However it is not likely that e-Procu rement in its current form has 
had much influence on wider e-Government practice and the application/development of 
standards in the private sector.  
6.2. Achieve greater efficiency in pr ocurement, improve governance and 
competitiveness 
The Action Plan recognised that change would be necessary at many levels – legal, policy, 
technical, institutional and organisational – if the use and related benefits of e-Procurement were to be achieved. Specific actions were thus targeted at improving efficiency and 
governance. It also recognised th at by streamlining procedures, suppliers could save time and 
money thus making public procurement more attr active and ultimately more competitive. To 
reflect these priorities, the actions under this objective we re grouped under two headings 
which will be discussed in the following sections . The Intervention Logic for this objective is 
provided in Annex VI.  
 
EN 70   EN 6.2.1.  Increasing the efficiency of public procurement and improving governance – 
measures and results 
Table 15 - Measures to increase efficiency and improve governance 
Action Plan measure  Issues to be addressed  State of Play  
Member States to prepare 
national plans for introducing e-
Procurement setting measurable performance 
targets, taking account of 
specific national needs Policy 
Security 
Trust Inclusion 
Monitoring 
Dissemination of best practices Partially completed 
 
Member States to encourage 
preparation of similar plans by 
individual national buyers and 
coordinate + monitor their implementation Policy 
Security 
Trust 
Inclusion Dissemination of best practices 
Monitoring Partially completed 
 
Commission to continue 
monitoring work on e-invoices by CEN/ISSS and propose 
continuation of XML activities 
undertaken in 2003-2004 on e-
invoices and e-Ordering under 
IDABC Standardisation 
Interoperability Cross-border On-going59 
Member States to set up 
efficient electronic systems for 
the collection and processing of 
statistical procurement data Dissemination of best practices 
Monitoring Partially completed 
- Study on the automation of 
statistical data collection in 11 
Member States (April 2007) 
- Appropriate measures taken by 
some Member States 
Source: DG MARKT 
Acknowledging the complexity of the chan ge programme required, the Action Plan 
encouraged Member States to plan and monitor their move to e-Procurement, suggesting that 
a phased transition from paper-based to automate d systems would probably be most efficient. 
                                                 
59 Activities monitored on various standardisation activities by CEN and OASIS on XML automated 
messaging for e-Ordering & e-Invoicing, and various operational initiatives by DIGIT, ENTR 
 
EN 71   EN Such systems were expected to provide impor tant information about the state of the e-
Procurement markets and to identify at an ea rly stage areas requiring further attention.  
According to the Siemens-time.lex review, 14 co untries (12 Member St ates) did not produce a 
national action plan for e-Procurement, or these documents only contained quite general 
statements. However it was recogni sed that this assessment did not take into account five or 
six countries where a clear strategy existed but which was not formally documented in an 
Action Plan. Furthermore, some countries de veloped policies which specified particular 
elements e.g. infrastructure in Belgium, Neth erlands and Spain and which may or may not be 
accurately classified as an Action Plan. Other countries set a specific period of duration for 
their plans and it is difficult to know what happened afterwards in relation to the creation of 
new plans, or the extension of deadlines.  
In the Ernst and Young survey of Member Stat e bodies, three countries suggested reasons for 
not creating a national plan/strategy – these incl uded: problems getting stakeholders to agree; 
lack of political priority at that time; different  bodies having different  needs; and the belief 
that a plan was not necessary to develop and implement e-Procurement strategies properly. 
After some consideration, Siemens-time.lex concluded that there was no obvious 
relationship between the existence of na tional plans and the progress observed . The EIA, 
researching before the publication of the Action Plan, found that "the majority of Member 
States have developed a strategy for the intr oduction of electronic public procurement (21 
countries)"60. Nine out of 12 respondents to the Er nst and Young survey of Member States 
said that the EU Action Plan had played a role  in determining the national plan/strategy for e-
Procurement.  
Hence it is not clear how successful the Action Plan was in encouraging the development 
of formal national plans and addressing a wide range of concerns (including legal, 
technical, policy and infrastructure). However, as noted, approaches differed between 
countries and the lack of a formal plan has not necessarily prevented a country making 
progress in adopting e-Procurement  (24 Member States have sy stems capable of providing 
the phases to e-Submission to some extent). 
E-PRIOR  
E-PRIOR has been developed and deployed by the European Commission to allow the 
exchange of structured e-Catalogue, e-Ordering and e-Invoicing documents between the 
Commission and its suppliers. It is being developed under the IDABC programme and was 
initiated by Directorate-General for Internal Market (DG-MARKT) a nd Directorate-General 
for Informatics (DIGIT) of the European Commission.  
Open e-PRIOR provides an opportunity for reus ability of an open-source solution that has 
already been implemented at the Commission and wh ich provides a secure platform for 
document exchange. Open e-PRIOR is the firs t e-Procurement implementation which enables 
the exchange of electronic business document s using the data models of CEN/ISSS WS/BII.   
Source: DG MARKT  
                                                 
60 See Siemens.time-lex report page 96 
 
EN 72   EN Although Siemens-time.lex did not identify any Ac tion Plans which were adopted by national 
buyers, replies to the Ernst and Young Member  State questionnaire did imply that some 
countries had found it useful to  address the issue. Thus it can be inferred that Action Plan 
had at best fairly limited success in encour aging the adoption of plans by individual 
national buyers. 
The third measure in this group related to m onitoring the development of solutions for e-
Invoicing and e-Ordering – key post-award transactions, which could improve efficiency and 
have particular benefits in relation to in teroperability. The Comm ission has continued to 
monitor progress in these fields and has cont ributed to various ac tivities and projects, 
particularly the development of e-Prior (see box below). As reported in Chapter 5, there has 
been some progress relating to standardisation, but there may be outstanding legal 
issues relating to the European framework for e-Invoices.  Availability/use has increased 
since 2004, with more countries now possessing  systems capable of operating these phases 
(17 countries now capable of conduc ting some e-Ordering/e-Catalogues  as compared to 
seven in 2004; five countries now have some e-Invoicing capacity  compared to one in 
2004). The countries which operate these phases report very high potential savings – 
both in time and money.  The Danish estimate a saving of  12 to 20 minutes per invoice, 
translating to yearly cost savings of approxima tely €500 million; signif icant savings are also 
reported in Finland. According to a recent Deutsche Bank study61 moving from paper based to 
digital means could save the party receiving  the invoice around €11.6 pe r transaction and the 
invoice issuer around €6 .9 per transaction. 
The fourth action under this objective targeted  the creation of thorough monitoring systems 
via the collection and processing of relevant statistical data. Although the Siemens-time.lex 
study identified seven countries which collect (or plan to collect) public procurement statistics 
on a fairly regular basis, few statistics are currently available relating to e-Procurement 
and only one country (France) has pub licised a coherent monitoring strategy.  When 
validating their country fiches fo r the Siemens-time.lex study, very  few countries were able or 
perhaps unwilling to provide statistical data. Provision and publication of such data may be 
sensitive - sometimes political reasons prevent fi gures from being disclosed. The lack of data 
may also be related to the fact that many national action plans did not contain quantitative 
targets. This lack of available data has certainly affected the ability of this evaluation to assess 
progress and has made it more diff icult to assess the efficiency of actions taken. It has also 
influenced the lack of progress towards the expected  development of goal-oriented policy 
making with quantifiable targets  and will therefore have hampered the 
identification/evidence base of both emer ging problems and successes. As a result, e-
Procurement policy is unlikely to have been as efficient and effective as it could have 
been . 
                                                 
61 Deutsche Bank Research paper "e-Invoicing Final steps of an efficient invoicing process" May 2010 
 
EN 73   EN 6.2.2.  Increasing the competitiveness of public procurement markets across the EU – 
measures and results 
Table 16 - Measures to increase competitiveness 
Action Plan measure  Issues to be addressed  State of Play 
Commission to consider 
proposing services for the 
electronic supply of business information and ce rtificates in 
public procurement for 
implementation under the IDABC programme Accessibility 
Standardisation 
Cross-border Automation (Simplification) 
Re-usability Completed 
- Feasibility study on the 
electronic provision of 
certificates & attestations most 
frequently required in PP, 
completed (12/2008).
62 
 
Member States and 
Commission agree on a common set of frequently 
required electronic certificates 
for use in e-proc Accessibility 
Standardisation Cross-border 
Re-usability On-going 
- e-CERTIS  Feasibility study ('e-
Certificates II') on creation of an online database on certificates & 
attestations (funded by IDABC) 
Commission proposes 
launching study on e-catalogues (in DPS + electronic 
framework agreements) using 
work by CEN/ISSS under the IDABC programme Standardisation 
Technical Inclusion Completed  
- Feasibility study on e-Catalogues 
(November 2007)62 
Public Procurement Network to 
organise benchmarking on transparency, auditing + 
traceability of e-proc systems Transparency 
Legal Trust 
Common understanding Delayed 
 
Public Procurement Network to 
organise workshops to promote exchanges on tender document 
standardisation Accessibility 
Standardisation Automation (Simplification) Delayed 
 
Member States to launch and 
support specific awareness 
campaigns +training for SMEs at national + regional level Inclusion 
Policy On-going 
 
Source: DG MARKT 
                                                 
62 Available at DG MARKT website http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-
procurement_en.htm#feasability  
 
EN 74   EN On-line procurement has the potential to be more transparent than paper-based – it permits 
simple and quick exchange of contract rela ted information and can reduce opportunities for 
fraud. In the same way, on-line procurement shoul d be easier to conduct. In order to achieve 
this, the Action Plan made it clear that steps should be take n to simplify the procurement 
process.  
In 2004, practical experience relating to the us e and provision of electronic documents was 
virtually non-existent. The f easibility study completed in 2008 identified potential scenarios 
to overcome the existing interoperability prob lems and created road-maps to realise the 
selected scenarios. Subsequently, DG MARK T has commissioned the e-CERTIS tool, which 
lists all the documents commonly required in a country and contains a mapping to 
equivalent/similar documents in other countries where possible. E-CERTIS will be launched 
in the autumn of 2010 and should help address the concerns of both EOs and CAs 
relating to the various atte stations and documents reque sted/accepted in different 
countries, improving access and saving time .  
E-CERTIS 
E-CERTIS is a free, on-line source of informa tion to help economic operators and contracting 
authorities to cope with the di fferent forms of documentary evid ence required for cross-border 
tenders for public contracts. 
e-CERTIS presents the different certificates fr equently requested in procurement procedures 
across the 27 EU Member States, two candida te countries (Turkey and Croatia) and three 
EEA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norw ay). Currently, the documents required differ 
from one country to another. E-CERTIS helps tenderers and contractin g authorities to find 
their way through this maze.  
In particular, e-CERTIS helps: 
• Economic operators to find out which certificates  issued in their country they need to 
include in tender files submitted to an authority in a partner country; 
• Contracting authorities to establish which documents issued by a partner country are 
equivalent to the certificates which they requi re to confirm the eligibility of the tender. 
• E-CERTIS matches equivalent documents acr oss the different national datasets. The 
common, consistent structure permits fairly in -depth analysis of th e different types of 
document. Keyword searches, logical fiel d grouping and compare functions help all 
involved in procurement procedures to reco gnise business documents and assess their 
content. 
Source: DG MARKT 
PEPPOL is also addressing the issue of business documents, with the goal of setting technical 
standards to enable EOs to set up a Virtual Co mpany Dossier (VCD). A VCD is the collection 
of various types of evidence in  electronic format. The Services  of the Commission have also 
been involved in work in several other areas  relating to this issu e, which has wider e-
Government implications. These areas include th e Services Directive, exchange of judicial 
records, developments on e-Customs and also  for BRITE – an on-line business standards 
register. It was expected that these measures wo uld lead to the development of more 
 
EN 75   EN standardised practises resulting in greater and easier use of common e-Documents. What 
has actually happened is that little if any progress has been made in terms of identifying a 
common set of frequently required document s - rather countries have adopted more 
pragmatic approaches  – the study on e-Certificates iden tified various workarounds designed 
to eliminate or reduce the need for e-Attest ations. For example, some CAs accept self-
declaration forms from EOs or declarations of  compliance provided via a trusted third party. 
Whilst it is debatable whether these solutions ar e truly "electronic attestations", the study 
shows that they work in practice at a nationa l level and reduce the administrative burden on 
the EO. However they do present some difficu lties for EOs coming from other countries. 
The third measure under this objective related to  the use of electronic catalogues in DPS and 
electronic framework agreements - the resultant study conclu ded inter alia:  
• That common standards were required for e-Ca talogues, not just for use in e-Procurement 
but in the wider e-Business environment;  
• E-Catalogues should be used in both e-Tendering and e-Ordering; and  
• That electronic catalogues should be reusable.  
Adopting these measures would realise effici ency gains related to greater automated 
processing and the ability to re-use catal ogues and formats when moving between bids. 
Related initiatives include the PEPPOL work package on e-Catalogues and work undertaken 
by CEN and DIGIT. Availability/use of e-Catal ogues has increased since 2004  – 19 
countries (18 Member States) have been identif ied as operating some de gree of e-Catalogues, 
although use varies by country and is generally found in the e-Ordering phase . The lack 
of coherent standards remains a key issue – there are many standardisation bodies 
operating in this area (OASIS, UN/CEFACT , CEN/ISSS etc) and several competing 
classification schemes (including the CPV). 
The two measures addressed to the Public Proc urement network (PPN) have not been started 
and hence have not affected the situation in the way intended. I ndeed, it could be argued that 
by not conducting such an exercise, valuable information which could have effected the efficient and effective development of e-Procurement systems has been lost.  
Finally, under this objective,  Member States were enco uraged to launch and support 
awareness campaigns targeting SMEs. Not all Member States have adopted this measure – but those that have, notably Ireland, France, Scotland and Italy, have experienced some 
success in encouraging SMEs to move from  paper based to electronic procurement.  
Although not tasked explicitly under this measure, the Commission has also been active in 
this area – in 2008 it published the European C ode of Best Practises Facilitating Access by 
SMEs to Public Procurement Contracts and the 2008 European Small Business Act. Some 
countries report that SMEs are fi nding it harder to access markets – for example, in a 
recent meeting of the ACPC, Austria mentioned concerns that trends towards aggregating 
contracts offered electronically  (for example, via Centra l Purchasing Bodies or under 
Framework Agreements) were excluding SMEs. As further developments and refinements 
are made, it may be necessary to ensure that all e-Procurement systems are SME 
friendly. Given the lack of specific policy within th e majority of Member  States, at an EU 
level, the Action Plan has not contributed significantly to deliv ering the expected result of 
increasing SME participation in e-Procurement. 
 
EN 76   EN 6.2.3.  Wider impacts of the me asures under Objective 2 
Taken together, it was expected th at the results of these measures  would lead over time to an 
increased and improved national co-ordinatio n of public procurement and e-Procurement 
strategies. Despite the absence of clear and ope n monitoring systems, it is strongly probable 
(human nature) that countries have  adapted their strategies in the face of the results they have 
seen and the problems discovered through implementing e-Procurement,. The e-
Procurement community has proved good at  disseminating and sharing experiences via 
conferences, EU meetings (most notably th e e-Procurement working group) and on the 
Commission's website for sharing e-Governme nt related experience (www.epractice.eu). 
Again, due to limited improvements in interopera bility and standardisation, the wider 
benefits relating to increased competition a nd greater cross-border use are unlikely to 
have been achieved to an y great degree at present.  Some of the developments, e.g. with 
respect to e-Attestations a nd e-Invoicing may have had wider effects in the overall e-
Government theatre, but these are likely to be limited. Some evidence relating to possible 
efficiency gains has been provided  (e.g. e-Invoicing) but has yet to be demonstrated at the 
wider EU level. 
6.3. Work towards an international framewor k for electronic public procurement 
The third objective of the Action Plan looked to the wider stage and considered actions 
intended to ensure that third country markets which adopted e-Procurement remained open to 
EU businesses and vice versa. It is not clear how much real progress was expected in this 
area; several of the ex pectations were perhaps more aspi rational than conc rete and were 
conditioned upon wider developments occurring at EU and international level. The 
Intervention Logic for this objec tive is provided in Annex VI.  
Table 17 - Measures to work towards an international framework 
Action Plan measure  Issues to be addressed  State of Play  
Commission to pursue 
negotiations on the review of the Government Procurement 
Agreement (GPA) International cross-border 
Policy Legal On-going63 
Commission to take initiatives 
in the GPA to progress towards 
utilisation of a single common nomenclature for the 
classification of procurement 
goods and services International cross-border 
Standardisation 
Policy International common 
understanding On-going63 
                                                 
63 COM has taken action according to the Action Plan's objectives, but the negotiation is still on-going. 
 
EN 77   EN Action Plan measure  Issues to be addressed  State of Play  
Commission to promote the 
activities of and liaise with 
international standardisation bodies & fora to avoid 
emergence of in teroperability 
barriers at international level International cross-border 
Policy 
Standardisation Interoperability On-going 
Commission to cooperate with 
Multilateral Development 
Banks (MDBs) network in view of co-ordinating technical 
assist. to 3
rd countries, 
supporting re-organising and computerising their PP regimes International cross-border 
Policy 
Inclusion  On-going 
Commission to consider any 
adjustments necessary + 
feasibility of e- Procurement in 
context of EU external aid 
instruments Policy 
Transparency On-going 
Source: DG MARKT 
6.3.1.  Results of these measures 
The Action Plan recognised that  the EU/ and associated count ries were not the only ones 
developing e-Procurement soluti ons. Global developments in e-Procurement could probably 
lead to a range of barriers being introduced, preventing European and 3rd country firms from 
accessing each other’s markets. The Action Plan id entified measures designed to ensure that 
EU rules were compliant with internationa l obligations and deve lopments and that good 
practices were widely disseminated. 
In terms of the GPA, both the identified m easures are still on-goi ng – the Commission has 
made proposals within the current  GPA review: 
• To include provisions relating to e-Procurement which should  ensure alignment between 
the EU and international approaches; and 
• Within article 22 (the " rendez-vous " clause) it has been proposed that within a three year 
time frame, the GPA committee discusses the de velopment of standardisation notices and 
the use of common nomenclatures.  
To date no common nomenclatures have been found for goods; the UN classification (CPC – 
in full) is used by most GPA countries for se rvices. However, until the full negotiations are 
completed, these propositions are provisional. 
The third measure under this objective related to  preventing the emergence of technological 
barriers at the international le vel through liaison with the appr opriate standardisation bodies 
and fora. Although this action has been complete d (in terms of the time period, in practice it 
has no set end point and is permanently on-going)  – as discussed in the chapters above the 
Commission is active in discussi ons relating to these matters a nd liaises with bodies such as 
CEN, and UNCEFACT. PEPPOL also recognis es the importance of dissemination and 
 
EN 78   EN consensus building and has a work package fo cussed on making the proj ect and its results 
well-known and accepted by all keys players in th e EU, and (presumably) on the international 
stage. 
Multilateral Development Banks also play an im portant role in the development of EU and 
international e-Procurement. As recomme nded in the Action Plan, the Commission has 
followed various activities to co-ordinate technical assistance to third countries that were also 
modernising their procurement systems and moving to e-Procurement. Again this is 
considered to be completed on an on-going basis as there is no set end point. There has also 
been co-operation and co-ordination with UNC ITRAL which holds a twice annual meeting of 
a working group for Public Procurement.  
In relation to the final measure, discussions  are on-going within the Commission to consider 
whether a simplified set of standard forms can  be created which are more appropriate for 
procurements related to the pr ovision of EU external aid.  
Despite these efforts, little concrete progress can be said to have been made in relation to 
eliminating legal and technical barriers on  an international level and increasing 
international e-Procurement . Indeed this is not surprising given the limited progress at EU 
level and the issues relating to cross border pr ocurement within the EU; greater progress at 
EU level would have perhaps made it easier to  make the case for adopting European standards 
and approaches. Websites such as e-Practice do disseminate information relating to 
European Best Practice and there is an acti ve e-Procurement community which presents 
and shares information via conferences around the world .  
6.3.2.  Wider impacts of the me asures under Objective 3 
Overall, progress has been limited and overall little impact has been made in relation to 
facilitating e-Procurement at an inte rnational level. As mentioned above, it was probably not 
realistic to expect clear progress under this objective, which is partly dependent (e.g. 
GPA negotiations) on the priorities  and interests of other parties. However it was, and 
remains, an important area for EU involvement. 
6.4. Other issues raised in the Action Plan 
Although not addressed by specific measures the Ac tion Plan (page 7) referred to the need to: 
"pay attention to potential excessive or abusiv e centralisation of purchases, inappropriate use 
of electronic auctions and preferences fo r closed purchasing systems (e.g. framework 
agreements) over open systems." 
As discussed in section 5.6.4, the use of fram ework agreements has grown since 2004; they 
are legally permitted in all Member States ap art from Belgium (which recognises framework 
contracts) and frequently use d, particularly in some countri es (e.g. Sweden, Finland, Norway, 
Austria, Denmark, Italy and th e United Kingdom). As far as can be assessed, the Siemens-
time.lex study concludes that where used, framew ork agreements appear to have delivered 
cost savings and have led to improved efficiency but it is not clear how many framework 
agreements are being co nducted electronically . Although the data from TED implies that 
many framework agreements are signed with  only one EO, and hence subject to no 
competition for the contracts awarded via the agreement, no indication has been found to support the concerns of the Actio n Plan. In some countries Memb er States have also used 
CPBs to provide framework agreements – again, it would seem that Member States view this 
 
EN 79   EN as an efficient approach, implying they are not  worried by any possibl e negative effects or 
assume that the positives outweigh the negatives.  
Centralisation effects in general are more difficult to judge – there are some indications that 
there is a tendency to greater centralisation (e .g. the number of CPBs, the range of services 
they cover) but equally moves to encourage participation by SMEs have resulted in tenders 
being broken up into smaller lots.  
Whilst e-Auctions appear to be delivering large savings in some cases, this is unlikely to be a 
concern to many CAs in the current financial climate. However some concerns have been 
voiced about the lack of benefits to EOs whic h could ultimately prevent some players from 
competing in e-Auctions and lead to restricted  markets where prices are actually higher than 
in a more open system.  
6.5. Have the objectives of the Action Plan been achieved? 
In broad terms it is clear from the state of play and the above assessment that whilst 
progress has been made to introduce and us e e-Procurement, the overall objective of 
unhindered cross-border electronic procu rement has not yet been achieved.  Realistically, 
given the complexity of the change required and the inherent challenges in moving towards 
electronic systems, these ambiti ous objectives were always unlikely to be achieved in such a 
short time-frame – it is perhaps fairer to ask if greater progress could have been expected. 
6.5.1.  Do we have a well functioning Internal Mark et in electronic p ublic procurement? 
Progress has been made, particularly at the national level, but there is currently no 
internal market in e-Procurement  – although e-Procurement is beginning to make its 
presence felt, use at the moment is still marg inal at best and cross-border e-Procurement 
virtually non-existant (perhaps reflecting some of the limitations which appear in the current, paper-based, market). However the success of a nu mber of platforms indicates that a business 
case can be made.  
Whilst different "island" solutions exist, the br idges to connect them do not. Nonetheless, the 
legal framework does appear to have been corr ectly implemented albeit to a slightly longer 
timetable than originally desi red and many countries now have infrastructures which provide 
the appropriate basic tools. However this infr astructure is not based on common standards and 
interoperability problems exist, creating barriers to cross-border e-Procurement. There are also some outstanding legal issues to be ad dressed. A range of projects and studies are on-
going, looking into ways to address the various technical issues and provide, in the coming 
years, some solutions to these interope rability problems on an EU-wide basis. This situation 
bears marked similarity to the baseline scenar io outlined in the impact assessment i.e. 
the situation expected to be in place if no  action was taken at Community level. Given 
that action was taken, it would seem fair to  conclude that less ha s been achieved than 
might have been expected. 
6.5.2.  Have we achieved greater efficiency in procurement, improve governance and 
competitiveness? 
Again, at a national level, there is some ev idence that procurement has become more 
efficient as a result of e-Procurement  – certainly many portals promote the savings made by 
using their systems. Some initial improvements in governance have been seen  – at least 
 
EN 80   EN during the process of introducing e-Procurement, when many countries cr eated national plans. 
Fewer countries appear to have plans/a clear st rategy covering the future roll out and use of e-
Procurement. Goal oriented policy making does no t seem to have been widely adopted – only 
seven countries seem to have systems for regularly collecting data and information. There 
are indications that competition has increased  – some countries repo rt increased numbers 
of bidders per tender – certainly many Economic Op erators appear to be registering with the 
various portals available nationally. So some improvements have  been seen, although 
again they are probably less than  might have been expected.  
6.5.3.  Have we progressed towards an interna tional framework fo r electronic public 
procurement? 
Although the Commission has made progress and carried out the actions  identified under the 
Action Plan, there has not been much progress in de veloping an international framework 
for e-Procurement . Here expectations were perhaps not that high as success relied on a 
multitude of factors and was not always within the control of the EU.  
 
EN 81   EN 7. CONCLUSIONS  
Whilst Chapter 6 provided an assessment of how  much the Action Plan has contributed to the 
progress which has been made in relation to e-Procurement, this chapter will focus on 
answering the evaluation questions . It will also identify the outstanding issues and discuss the 
next steps, particularly in re lation to developing a future mo nitoring and evaluation strategy.  
7.1. Answers to the evaluation questions 
7.1.1.  To what extent have public procurement procedures been "computerised"? 
As has been shown, progress has been made to introduce e-Procurement systems - today 
systems offering some level of functionality exist in 30 of the 32 countries (26 Member 
States). The services provided vary quite markedly across th ese countries however, both in 
terms of the number of phases/tools supported and also in terms of the approach taken and the 
level of sophistication of the ICT solutions adopted. In 25 of the 32 countries considered (24 
Member States), there are some systems available and capable of providing e-
Submission and hence meet the definition of e-Procurement used for this evaluation.  18 
countries (17 Member States) offer the full pre- award phases. Some Member States or regions 
have put in place e-Procurement systems wh ich can support 'straight through electronic 
procurement' processes – at least for purch ases of standards supplies and services. Whilst 
these figures show that availability has increas ed and it is now possible, in theory, to 
conduct procurements electronic ally in the majori ty of countries, it is not clear how 
many authorities and economic operators have  access to these systems, some of which 
are limited to certain us ers (e.g. central government).   
The actual number and value of tenders which are both being made av ailable and concluded 
using electronic means is not clear. Actual use of e-Procurement is difficult to measure, 
but is estimated to be much lower than might be inferred from the fi gures relating to the 
infrastructure which has been introduced.  Other than in Portugal, where electronic 
procurement has been mandatory since 2009 and nearly 100% of all procurement is conducted 
electronically, the EU average figure is likely to  be less than 5% of total value. France and 
Italy, countries which have been active support ers and adopters of e-Procurement estimate 
that only 4% and 2.5% respectiv ely of their total procuremen t is conducted electronically. 
Uptake is likely to increase as experience w ith e-Procurement grows – many of the systems 
are still fairly new and there are signs that  momentum is building in the e-Procurement 
market.  
Good progress has been made in terms of the phases which only require a one-way flow 
of information  (e-Notification and e-A ccess), which have also perhaps benefited from the 
incentives built in to the 2004 legislation. The introduction of systems which can conduct 
two-way flow of information has been more difficult  - mainly due to issues around the 
required level of security/trust which a system must provide, but also perhaps influenced by 
lack of clear incentives for their use by all parties.  
Member States have taken the widest possi ble range of positions in approaching 
authentication  - from simple user id/password syst ems available to all, to technically 
demanding e-Signature solutions which only a limited number of operators can meet. This 
has had knock-on effects for the systems they have developed and ultimately the 
 
EN 82   EN accessibility of these systems by different EOs, particularly non-national operators.  No 
known breaches of trust or security have b een reported for either type of system. 
Different approaches have also been seen in terms of the degree of technological advancement 
built into a system. Some Member States/provi ders have produced systems which act mainly 
as communication channels between the CAs a nd EOs, permitting the upload and exchange of 
documents prepared locally by either the CA or  EO; others have created systems which allow 
EOs to work within the e-Procurement system  itself, entering their data and information 
directly into (standard) documents and forms on the central system. (See Annex III for further detail) 
Many of the necessary technical building bl ocks which were expected to develop over 
this period have not advanced to a poin t where the market has converged on common 
standards or approaches.  In some areas, such as e-Attestations, pragmatic approaches or 
workarounds have been adopted which allow e-Procurement systems to operate. It is 
questionable whether such systems will/s hould adopt technologically more advanced 
solutions if they become available,  or if they will c ontinue to operate at a technologically less 
advanced, but more pragmatic level. 
Multi user platforms appear  to be very successful.  These can be provided in a range of 
ways - for example CAs can hire space on a priv ate system or can use a CPB, which may be 
publicly or privately run. Also electronic ma rketplaces are proving successful in some 
instances - suppliers freely pub lish catalogues and registered ad ministrations procure what 
they want in a "click and buy" fashion – although such solutions are generally suited to below threshold e-Procurement. The key concept appears to be the provision of solutions by 3
rd 
parties.  
In summary, progress has been made, but there is  a still a long way to go to achieve the 
vision of the Action Plan. The degree of technological sophistication evident in the 
systems developed varies widely. Some coun tries have developed "state of the art" 
systems; others have adopted si mpler, lower-tech solutions. As yet, no evidence has been 
presented that the approaches which are based on lower levels  of technology have 
experienced any problems in relation to providi ng acceptable levels of security and trust. 
Building on such solutions, which are more accessible to EOs, including non-nationals, may 
thus be the best way to advan ce the switch from paper to comput er based systems in the short 
to medium term and facilitate the possibility to conduce cross-border electronic procurement. 
Whilst e-Procurement in the EU may be nearing the Manchester target of 100% 
availability in 2010, at least in theory, it is currently far short of the 50% use target. 
7.1.2.  To what extent did the EU Action Plan for e- Procurement identify the right priorities 
and strategy? To what exten t has it been implemented? 
Whilst not all the measures fore seen under the Action Plan have been completed, or in a few 
instances not yet started, 13 have been completed and a similar number are still on-going. In 
assessing to what extent the Action Plan has achieved its objectives it has become clear 
that the areas targeted for attention were,  on the whole, relevant and important to 
improving and increasing the development a nd use of e-Procurement systems. Hence, 
the Action Plan did iden tify the right priorities :  
– A single consistent legislative framework was required in the EU, defining in broad terms 
the requirements for e-Procurement systems; 
 
EN 83   EN – Solutions needed to be found to issues such  as interoperabilit y, standardisation and 
authentication;  
– To manage and achieve the switchover from  paper to computer, clear planning and 
monitoring was required;  
– Best practices and experience needed to be shared; and  
– To a lesser extent, although still important, th e EU needed to promote the advances being 
made within its borders and ensure that intern ational developments were in step with what 
was happening in Europe. 
A few, perhaps subtle exception s may be highlighted however . One relates to the 
emphasis placed on the adoption of qualified signatures. These technologically demanding 
solutions may be creating an unnecessary barrie r to access and cross-border use. Whilst they 
have the same legal value as hand-written signatures, there is currently no evidence that such a sophisticated solution is actually  required in practice. As yet, no "lower tech" solutions have 
caused problems relating to security / trust a nd to require e-Signatures at submission may be 
slightly over zealous. The soluti ons requested for e-Procuremen t should be proportionate to 
the risks involved in the process. For example, further consideration coul d perhaps be given to 
the possibility that it is only on ce a contract is awarded and si gned that legal certainty is 
required; if something goes wrong after that point, legal re-dre ss is ensured via the provisions 
of the contract itself. Whilst conducting the procurement process this trust and honesty can, to 
a large extent, be assumed. 
Secondly, the need to develop and use electroni c certificates may h ave reduced, at least 
in the short to medium term, due to the mo re practical workarounds which have been 
adopted by some countries.  The acceptance of declarations  of compliance by CAs, allowing 
bids to be evaluated first and re quiring proof of certain  eligibility and suitability criteria only 
from the winning bidder can sign ificantly reduce the administra tive burden placed on EOs. 
Such measures are permitted  under the 2004 Directives.  
Given that the majority of these priorities are still valid in 2010, it is perhaps more revealing 
to consider whether the strategy adop ted by the Action Plan was appropriate. 
Firstly, it should be noted that the Public Procurement Directives are by their very nature, not 
prescriptive – they provide the framework within  which Member States are free to define their 
own particular mode of operation. Also, in 2004 when the Action Plan was drawn up, the e-
Procurement market was still very much in  its infancy. In particular, many of the 
technological drivers for change, such as comm on standards and formats and ways to address 
interoperability, were undevel oped. No real leading contende rs could be identified – the 
market needed to evolve and in so doing find solutions to the various issues. After some consideration
64, a flexible, somewhat gentle, approach (rather than a prescriptive or directive 
one) was deemed most appropriate to preven t innovation and competition from being stifled. 
Of course, this ran the risk that a range of stand alone solutions would be developed which 
could not, at least in their initia l versions, interact – which is precisely the situation we have 
today. Equally, the Action Plan assumed that th ese technological adva nces would be made 
                                                 
64 See EIA for further detail.  
 
EN 84   EN fairly quickly; actual progress has been slow and it is only now in 2010 that we are finally 
progressing to putting the necessary technological building blocks in place. 
According to the EIA (page 32), the strategy proposed relied upon "close co-operation and 
partnership between the Commissi on and the Member States in order to exploit the available 
synergies and co-ordinate effo rts among all the actors involved  in implementing the Action 
Plan." Although this "soft-law" approach ha s been fruitful and encouraged the 
development of creative solutions, with the bene fit of hindsight, it might still have been 
better to be more pro-active and direct ive in relation to certain measures.  Many Action 
Plan measures consisted of guidance or pilot st udies which sought to te st or promote certain 
solutions. They have raised awareness of pr oblems, pointed towards solutions and provided 
common points of reference for the wider mark et. However, they did not seek to impose 
particular solutions or outcomes at a time wh en technology and business models were still 
evolving. As they have been drafted in terms which are sufficiently broad, it is possible to 
claim some measure of success, without it bei ng particularly clear what contribution they 
actually made to the progress achieved. If these actions had been somewhat more specific and included pro-active follow-up measures (e.g. work shops to identify and agree next steps), 
their resultant impacts may have b een greater (and easier to assess). Often where there were 
more targeted actions, accompanied by the use of clear incentives – for example the 
changes to TED and e-Notification, greater success, more directly a ttributable to the 
Action Plan (and the incentives) can be identified.   
Although there was a certain natural allocati on of tasks between the Commission and 
Member States, and it was assumed that all parties were equally willing and able to 
carry out the tasks given to them, this has not always happened.  There may be many 
reasons why some Member States have not adva nced their e-Procurement infrastructure or 
followed up some of the policy recommendati ons included in the Action Plan. The two 
actions led by the Public Procurement Network (PPN), a forum for Member States run by 
Member States have been delayed, as have  certain actions for the Commission such as 
adjusting external aid instruments where progress has been made only recently. Since there was no clear mechanism put in place to monito r developments and no powers were given to 
any party to enforce or demand that such actions were fulfilled, progress in some areas was always likely to slip. In other instances, whil st it was appropriate (under subsidiarity) to 
encourage Member States to put in place da ta collection and monitoring systems, some 
central guidance from the Commission would also  have been useful, helping to promote both 
action under this heading and in ensuring co mmonality and consistency between systems. 
In terms of the results this strategy has delivered, judged against the success criteria 
identified earlier (see 4.4) progress has been less than might have been hoped.  Legal 
barriers, or at least issues, stil l exist – some should be fairly simple to address e.g. by issuing 
further clarification, others such as the legal i ssues relating to the providers of e-Procurement 
systems and access to markets will require great er thought. Technical barriers have not been 
reduced and it could be argued that with the increased number of solutions developed, the 
increased number of e-Signatures available, they have even increased. No real interoperable systems currently exist within Europe althoug h some interoperability  is possible between 
systems existing at the national level (often b ecause those systems have  been developed from 
one common template).  
The use of qualified e-Signatures (and e-Signatu res in general) has increased since 2004 but 
this has not led to them becoming the standard e-Signature type nor even the main approach 
to authentication – other forms are also used . Common standards do not currently exist, but 
 
EN 85   EN there has been some progress towards them, par ticularly in post-award  phases. Governance of 
public procurement has seen some improvement in  some countries, but it is not clear if this 
was just focussed on the implementation stage – not many plans or strategies were identified 
for the upcoming period. Some c ountries have adopted better data collection and monitoring 
systems but not all. Given the interoperability issues, we know that some national markets are 
effectively closed to non-national economic operators. Centralisation may be reducing access to markets for some operators, particularly SMEs although some count ries have introduced 
quite detailed plans aimed at ensuring greater  access to markets for SMEs. While proposals 
have been made to the GPA and the Commissi on is active in various fora, overall progress 
towards an international framework for e-Procurement remains limited.  
Although dissemination has been fairly good with in the e-Procurement community, more can 
be done to reach EOs and CAs who are not ye t aware or convinced of the benefits e-
Procurement can offer. The business case for e-Pr ocurement needs to be promoted more – and 
to do this effectively, greater effort should be made to produce and use key statistics. 
This assessment hides however the efforts and achievements that have been made by some 
contracting authorities, economic operators, CP Bs and Member States to adopt the changes 
that have been made to date. The Action Plan perhaps underestimated, or did not put 
sufficient focus on the large organisational an d operational challenges that such a move 
requires. It is not clear how  much advance has been made  in simplifying processes and 
extracting efficiencies. Even wh ere countries had the political  support and hence access to 
technical and financial resources, change has been  slow to happen. Different countries start at 
different points of the learni ng curve; they also have diffe rent issues to overcome. For 
example, large countries with many contract ing entities face different problems to smaller 
ones; some countries already have fairly centr alised procurement and hence may find it easy 
to introduce one or a small number of portals  – in countries with a more decentralised 
approach, many portals are likely to spring up br inging with them furthe r issues relating to 
access, standardisation and interoperability. 
The review of websites and e-Procurement system s, plus more general feedback from various 
actors, implies that the guidance and pilot studies produced as a re sult of the Action Plan have 
been useful. They have raised awareness of problems, pointed towards solutions and provided 
common reference points for the wider market.  
Little information is available at national or  EU level to allow a thorough assessment of how 
compliant the various actors ha ve been with the measures pr oposed. However, given that 13 
measures are complete with a further th ree having shown good progress and 13 are on-going 
it is clear that much effort has been made. 
In summary, it would seem that broadly speaki ng the priorities iden tified in the Action 
Plan were generally correct, although more empha sis/action could have been directed at 
aiding and encouraging organisational change . The strategy itself, whilst appropriate in 
the context of the developing market, could h ave been better – even if it could not be 
prescriptive, it could have been somewhat  more pro-active and put in place control 
mechanisms or procedures to ensure acti ons were conducted. Whilst much work has 
been undertaken as a result of the Action Plan, as noted ear lier, the ambitious objectives 
are yet to be met. Perhaps the greatest flaw , although no-one could know this at the 
time, is that it assumed, incorrectly as it turns out, that techno logy would advance more 
quickly and create the optimal conditions for introducing and adopting e-Procurement.  
 
EN 86   EN 7.1.3.  How relevant, efficient and effe ctive has the Action Plan been in achieving or at least 
nearing the stated objectives  of efficient and unhindered cross-border e-Procurement 
in the EU? 
As has been identified above, e-Procurement is now a real possibility within the EU, but in 
practice actual use remains small and unhindere d cross-border procurement has not been 
achieved. In terms of the three evaluation criteria, the following  conclusions can be drawn: 
– Effectiveness - in some areas, the Action Plan measures have contributed towards the 
progress which has been made, although the actual objectives of the Action Plan have not 
been met. Hence the effectiveness of the Action Plan is limited; 
– Efficiency  – it is difficult to judge how well res ources have been used to achieve the 
results identified. Reviews of the existing syst ems imply that the studies and projects have 
contributed to the progress made but it is not  possible at present to assess the overall 
efficiency of the Action Plan.  
– Relevance – the assessment provided here shows quite clearly that the majority of 
priorities identified by the Action Plan were relevant in 2004 and many remain relevant 
today. Some slight shifts of emphasis may be appropriate in relation to authentication and 
e-Attestations and to some extent to th e focus put on cross border e-Procurement. 
It is perhaps also pertinent at this point to  mention a few results which were not expected 
under the Action Plan. These relate  to the more pragmatic solutions adopted sometimes at a 
national level, sometimes more locally, which bypass some of the more technical issues and 
allow e-Procurement systems, albeit less sophistic ated ones to operate. Most notably, this can 
be seen in the decision by some parties not to  adopt the complex e-Si gnatures promoted by 
the Action Plan, but to implement simpler systems which permit wider access. The other obvious area where this has occurred is in relati on to e-Attestations – ra ther than creating or 
providing such electronic documents, there has been a move to accepting declarations of 
compliance or allowing Third Parties to assess compliance. 
Hence although the Action Plan  has delivered its objectives to some extent, many of its 
priority areas are still relevant and if the visi on of the Action Plan is to be achieved, 
further co-ordinated action is required.  The following section summarises the main 
outstanding issues and barriers. 
7.2. What are the remaining issues to be addressed? 
This evaluation has identified a number of chal lenges and weaknesses which, if not addressed, 
will prevent the realisation of wider take-up of  e-Procurement and cross-border participation 
in on-line procurement. Looking to the future , the Commission must continue to act to 
minimise the risks of a decentralised, fragmented approach at EU level. To this end it could, 
in broad terms: 
– Adapt Community legislation or policy actions  where they have missed their targets or 
where appropriate, re-define targets; 
– Promote common principles, building blocks a nd models for regionally or nationally built 
e-Procurement systems to facilitate technical inter-connections between them or participation by operators in multiple systems; 
 
EN 87   EN – Encourage convergent, secure but commercially viable soluti ons to critical phases and 
applications; and 
– Disseminate examples of best-practices. 
Within this framework of actions, the issues pres ented below (in no particul ar order) appear to 
have most importance. There is some cr oss-over and synergy between these areas. 
• Provision of a supportive legal environment. As systems develop it may be necessary to 
set clearer conditions for their use and to defi ne the obligations relating to the provision 
and operation of such platforms. In the wider legislative contex t, to facilitate and reinforce 
greater use of e-Procurement at  both national and cross-border level and ensure a coherent 
legal environment, changes mi ght be required in related legislation, such as the e-
Signatures Directive (currently bei ng considered), e-Invoicing and VAT. 
• More pragmatic approach, where appropriate, to technical issues: Many of the more 
sophisticated approaches to authentication, particularly those ba sed around e-Signatures 
are preventing wider access and interoperabil ity. The desired effort s to standardise and 
restructure business documents and create electronic versions which are usable and 
acceptable across borders have been slow to materialise. Technology should be considered 
more as a means to achieve electronic pr ocurement rather than an end in itself. 
• Greater support for administrative simp lification and organisational change.  Many 
countries have reported inertia and a lack of interest on the part of EOs and CAs. More 
needs to be done to identify and promote wa ys to simplify the procurement process and 
facilitate organisational change. 
• Lack of standardisation. The availability of standards setting common rules on process 
and data structures for the exchange of busin ess information is clearly a success factor for 
e-Procurement. One of the biggest problems in relation to interoperable e-Procurement 
systems, was in 2004, and remains today in 2010, the lack of a coherent set of standards for communication and format.  
• Development of a more convergent infrastructure. Whilst convergence on one 
monolithic system is neither desirable nor intende d, it will facilitate participation if there is 
some common core functionality across systems.  Little commonality is currently visible in 
the different systems which have been develo ped – individual island solutions have been 
developed and if action is not taken quickly to create bridges between these systems, there 
is a strong risk of market fragmentation. To foster e-Procurement ta ke-up, one of the key 
challenges is to make availabl e in the various alternative forms (standards specifications, 
off-the-shelf products, open-source softwa re, application services provided by 3
rd parties) 
the largest possible number of building bloc ks, which together s hould ensure a certain 
degree of homogeneity across e-Procurement systems. 
• Improved access and wider inclusion. Closely linked to some of the issues identified 
above, more needs to be done to ensure that e-Procurement is available to all interested 
parties including SMEs and that the benefits can be shared by all. Incr eased use will lead to 
increased realisation of these benefits.  
• Best practice and dissemination.  As we move forward, it is vital that we avoid re-
inventing the wheel and find a mechanism wh ich profits more directly from these 
 
EN 88   EN experiences and more actively promotes and real ises the wider benefits. Within this policy, 
steps should be taken to intr oduce better monitoring systems at  both EU and national level. 
This would enable progress to be tracked more closely and, provided the appropriate 
indicators are introduced, facilitate timely acti on to address issues as they develop rather 
than once they have become endemic.  
• Greater emphasis on the pre-award phases, particularly e-Submission . This phase is a 
complex and interactive phase, involving se veral important e-Procurement challenges 
including: certificati on of submission time; authenticatio n of the information provided by 
the bidder; submission of attestations; and ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of the bids received. Addressing the problems pos ed by the different steps within the e-
Submission phase and moving towards a more  homogeneous landscape of e-Submission 
systems would greatly increase the use of  e-Procurement in general and hence the 
realisation of the resultant bene fits. It would also make it ea sier for economic operators to 
move between systems, both on a national and cro ss border level. 
7.3. Next steps 
Despite the inherent potential of e-Procurement to  facilitate remote participation in tenders, 
significant levels of participation in cross- border e-Procurement procedures have not yet 
materialised. This evaluation has identified a seri es of impediments to the wider up-take of e-
Procurement and increased cross-border partic ipation which have their origin in legal, 
technical and administrative features. The proliferation of e-Pr ocurement systems and 
solutions at national/regional level will exacerbat e the interoperability challenge. While there 
is limited evidence to-date that technical and legal barriers are stifling cross-border 
participation in e-Procurement, failure to a ddress these barriers at the outset will deprive 
economic operators and contracting authorities of  the full benefits that e-Procurement offers. 
Faced with this situation, the Commission believe s that there is a need for sustained attention 
at EU level to expand the use of e-Procuremen t in the EU. Rather than proposing detailed 
recommendations here, the Services of the Commi ssion would like to firs t propose a period of 
wider consultation, to build consensus on the most  important issues to be addressed and the 
approach to be adopted. This consultation pha se will be triggered by the publication of a 
Green Paper, building on the results of this evaluation, intended for pu blication in October 
2010.  
7.4. Future Monitoring and Evaluation 
Monitoring is an important part of any polic y intervention. By monitoring a system, an 
information process is designed which permits us ers and managers to periodically measure or 
test the state of the system. It allows them to ch eck that an activity is “on track” in relation to 
the pre-defined objectives a nd identify timely “corrective”  actions if necessary.  
In researching this evaluation it has become clear that altho ugh progress has been made since 
2004, with much research undertaken and publicati on of case studies a nd findings, there is a 
marked lack of commonly defined and collected statistics and indicators at an EU level. 
Although some Member States have taken ac tion to define and implement their own 
monitoring strategies, there ma y be differences in approach which could make it difficult to 
use and compare results. Even where such data  is being collected, it is not always made 
publicly available. This lack of data has undoubt edly affected the ability to objectively assess 
and judge the progress which has been made. 
 
EN 89   EN As we go forward, a clear monitoring strategy needs to be defined and implemented for e-
Procurement. This strategy would define: 
• The data to be collected, (taking into  account the costs of data collection); 
• The indicators to be compiled;  
• When the above actions should be undertak en and however measurement will occur; 
• Who will undertake this work. 
The indicators should in itially measure what is happening in  a Member State at national level 
and a method should be defined to allow compilation of EU level statistics. Where appropriate, these indicators should build on ex isting measures, aiming for consistency across 
the countries involved and avoiding ove rlap/duplication wherever possible. 
Future updates might then allow for lower leve l indicators to be considered – possibly by 
regional or local level, or in relation to partic ular purchase types. As part of the strategy, a 
baseline measurement should be conducted, against which future progress could be 
benchmarked. Ideally this data w ould be collected before/at the start of the new policy stage, 
but more realistically, given the need to define the precise indi cators, this might happen in the 
early stages of implementation.  
It is neither possible nor appropriate  at this point to actually defi ne the actual indicators, but in 
terms of the areas for which indicators sh ould be developed, there are three obvious 
candidates where effort must be targeted. Indicators must be agreed to measure both the 
availability and use of e-Procurement. Depending on the degree of sophistication required, 
it may be necessary to develop se veral indicators for each of these areas. It is not always 
necessary to create complicated indicators and it might be better to start with simple measures 
such as counts, which would at least provide some consistent information, and develop more 
sophisticated indicators over time. 
Particular emphasis should be placed on meas uring the use and availability of the e-
Submission phase as this has been identified as a key part of the e-Procurement dynamic, 
being the first phase where two-way informati on flows are required and hence an appropriate 
testing ground for the monito ring the degree of success obser ved in solving many of the 
issues which have been identified. 
For availability, possible suggest ions include simple counts pe r country of available sites 
providing certain tools and phase s possibly by type of provider (public, private, CPB etc); 
multi-criteria indicators could also be develope d based on combinations of availability against 
pre-defined standards.  
In relation to indicators of use, measures s hould be created which indicate the number of 
contracts conducted elec tronically (which could again be measured by the phases completed 
electronically) and by the value of these contract s. These figures could then be compared to 
the total number and volume of contracts being pub licly procured within the EU to give some 
idea of overall use.  
 
EN 90   EN When measuring e-Submission it might be nece ssary to consider how various tools are 
provided – for example, actual use of e-Sign atures in bids and th e level of signature 
requested; the requirements for e-Documents/e-Attestations. 
Indicators must also be developed rel ating to the main barriers identified , so that 
progress towards reducing or removing them can be measured clearly. In terms of 
interoperability, indicators will probably includ e some measure of cross-border activity e.g. 
cross-border bidding and success. Use and availa bility indicators for various tools and phases 
may be sufficient to identify progress in elim inating issues where pr oblems of clarity or 
definition have been identified.  
Other topics for consideration could include a measure of the involvement of SMEs and some 
measurement of costs and benefits. For example,  it would be useful to compare costs per 
paper procedure and costs per electronic procedure, or to estimate and compare pay back 
periods for different e-Procurement systems.  
It is always tempting to define a large numbe r of indicators based on areas of interest and 
possible hypotheses. Care must be taken to bala nce out the need for indicators against the cost 
of collecting consistent and reli able data across 32 countries. 
Only once the indicators have been developed and a baseline identifi ed, should some thought 
be given as to whether target s should be set and by whom. 
 
EN 91   EN ANNEX I - Glossary  
ACPC (Advisory Committee on Public Contracts) 
Advanced electronic signature  
An electronic signature which m eets the following requirements: 
It is uniquely linke d to the signatory 
• It is capable of identifying the signatory 
• It is created using means that the signatory can maintain under its sole control 
• It is linked to the data to which it relates in  such a manner that any subsequent change of 
the date is detectable. 
Attestation  
A document originating from a party other than the economic ope rators intended to 
demonstrate a quality or fact pert aining to the economic operator.  
Authentication 
The corroboration of the claimed identity of an entity and a set of its observed attributes (i.e. 
the notion is used as a synonym of “entity authentication”).  
BII Workshop 
Business Interoperability Interf aces on public procurement in Europe (BII) is CEN Workshop 
providing a basic framework for technical interoperability in pan-European electronic 
transactions, expressed as a set of technical specifications that  in particular are compatible 
with UN/CEFACT. 
BRITE (Business Register Interoperability Throughout Europe) 
An on-line business standards register 
CA (Contracting Authority) 
State, regional or local author ities, bodies governed by public law, associations formed by one 
or several of such authorities or one or seve ral of such bodies governed by public law, subject 
to the European regulatory framework on public procurement  
Certification Authority 
A certification service pr ovider which issues digital certific ates for use by ot her parties. CAs 
is characteristic of many public ke y infrastructure (PKI) schemes. 
Contract Award Notice 
A document completed by the Contracting Aut hority and made public after award of a 
contract. 
CC3P (e-Catalogue Classification in Public and Private Procurement) 
 
EN 92   EN CEN Project, its title is “Classification an d catalogue systems for public and private 
procurement” (CC3P) to be carried out within the framework of Workshop eCAT 
'Multilingual e-Cataloguing and e- Classification in e-Business’. 
CEN (Comité Européen de Normalisation – European Committee for Standardization) 
The European Committee for Standardization (ISO’s counterpart and the European entry 
point to UN/CEFACT). CEN Workshops ar e open consensus building platforms for 
contributing to standards, especially in the ICT area, and their produ ct is a CEN Workshop 
Agreement. 
CEN/e-Invoicing 
A CEN Workshop providing an open platfo rm for stakeholder consensus on the 
implementation of e-Invoices in Europe. 
CEN / ISSS (Information Societ y Standardisation System)  
CEN/ISSS (Information Society Standardisation System) was created in mid-1997 by CEN as 
the focus for its ICT standards activities.  
CWA (CEN Workshop Agreement) 
CII (Cross-Industry Invoice) 
The CII standard was developed by UN/CEFACT with a view to enhance links between the 
business and financial supply chains and to  enable cross-industry and cross-domain 
interoperability. This standard is based on a set of business requirements from different 
industries and stakeholders in bot h the private an d public sectors 
Contract Notice 
A document completed by the Contracting Au thority inviting companies to tender. 
CPB (Central Purchasing Body) 
A contracting authority which acquires supplie s and/or services intended for contracting 
authorities, or awards public contracts or concludes framework agreements for works, 
supplies or services intended fo r other contracting authorities. 
CPC (Central Product Classification) 
The United Nations Product Classi fication, covering goods and service  
CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) 
The CPV establishes a single classification system fo r public procurement aimed at 
standardising the references used  by contracting author ities and entities to describe the subject 
of procurement contracts. 
CROBIES 
Study on Cross border Interoperability of e-Signatu res. Its objective is to propose solutions to 
remove barriers to cross border interoperabi lity of qualified electronic signatures and 
advanced electronic signatures  based on qualified certificates. 
 
EN 93   EN CSP (Certification Service Provider) 
An entity or a legal or natural person who issues certificates or provides other services related 
to electronic signatures. 
COM (European Commission) 
CWA (CEN Workshop Agreement) 
A CEN Workshop agreement is a standardisatio n document, developed in a CEN Workshop. 
The latter is open to the direct participation of anyone with an interest in the development of 
the agreement.  
DG MARKT (Internal Market and Se rvices Directorate General) 
Internal Market and Services Directorate General of the European Commission 
DG DIGIT (Directorate General for Informatics) 
DG ENTR (Enterprise and Indu stry Directorate General) 
DG INFSO (Information Society an d Media Directorate General) 
Digital certificate 
A small set of structured data that has been electronically signed by a Certification Authority 
to bind the identity of a legal or  natural person to a 'public key' that can be used e.g. to verify 
electronic signatures cr eated by that person. 
Directive 
A Directive is a legislative act of the Europ ean Union which requires  Member States to 
achieve a particular result without dictati ng the means of achievi ng that result. Although 
obligatory to implement, Directives normally le ave Member States with a certain amount of 
leeway as to the exact rules to be adopted. 
DPS (Dynamic purchasing system) 
A completely electronic process for making co mmonly used purchases, th e characteristics of 
which, as generally available on the market, meet the requirements of the contracting 
authority, which is limited in duration a nd open throughout its validity to any economic 
operator which satisfies the selection criteria  and has submitted an indicative tender that 
complies with the specification. 
e-CERTIS 
Public database containing information on (e-)Attestations. 
EIA (Extended Impact Assessment)  
The Extended Impact Assessment relating to the development of the Commission’s Action 
Plan for e-Procurement, COM (2004)841, is available on the DG MARKT website  
EO (Economic operator) 
 
EN 94   EN Generic term for a contractor, supplier or serv ice provider in a public procurement. The terms 
"contractor", "supplier" and "service provider"  mean any natural or legal person or public 
entity or group of such persons and/or bodies  which offers on the market, respectively, the 
execution of works and/or a work, products or services. 
eCl@ss 
The international standard for unified and consis tent classification of products, materials and 
services along the entire supply chain 
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) 
Electronic Data Interchange refers to the structured transmission of data between 
organisations by electronic means. It is used to transfer electronic  documents from one 
computer system to another (i.e.) from one trading partner to anot her trading partner. 
EEA (European Economic Area) 
The Agreement creating the European Economic Area entered into fo rce on 1 January 1994. It 
allows the EEA EFTA States (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenst ein) to participate in the 
Internal Market on the basis of their applica tion of Internal Market  relevant acquits.  
e-ID 
An electronic representation of a certain subset of one or more attribut es pertaining to an 
entity. While an entity has only one identity, it may have many electronic identities. It should 
be noted that eIDs can take many forms, and ca n be stored on many diff erent types of media. 
An electronic identity or eID is not synonymous w ith an eID card: an eID card is only one of 
many tokens that can be used to support an eID. 
e-Invoicing Workshop 
The CEN/ISSS Workshop providing consensus-ba sed guidance for busin ess on electronic 
invoicing. Two phases were completed by the e nd of 2009, and a third phase started in 
February 2010. 
Electronic attestation / e-Attestation 
A generic term for a dematerialised  attestation. See under Attestation. 
Electronic auction / e-Auction 
A repetitive process involving an electronic de vice for the presentation of new prices, revised 
downwards, and/or new values c oncerning certain elements of te nders, which occurs after an 
initial full evaluation of the tenders, enabling them to be ranked using automatic evaluation 
methods. 
Electronic invoice / e-Invoice  
A generic term for a demateria lised invoice. See under Invoice. 
Electronic Signatur e or e-Signature 
Electronic signatures are da ta in electronic form which are att ached to or logically associated 
with other electronic data and which serve as a method of authentication. 
 
EN 95   EN EPC (European Payments Council) 
The European Payments Council is the deci sion making and co-ordination body of the 
European banking industry in relation to paymen ts. Its purpose is to support and promote the 
creation of a single eu ro payments area (SEPA) through industry self-regulation. The EPC 
defines common positions for core payment services within a competitive market place, provides strategic guidance for standardisation, formulates best practices and supports and 
monitors implementation of decisions taken.  
e-Procurement 
A public procurement procedure initiated, ne gotiated and/or conclu ded using electronic 
means, i.e. using electronic equipment for the processing and storage of data, in particular 
through the Internet. 
ePWG (e-Procurement Working Group) 
e-Procurement Working Group of the Advisory Committee for Public Contracts  
ePPS (electronic Product Property Server) 
The ePPS project aims at defining a systema tic and generic approach to implement an 
operational product property server.  
The ePPS project will deliver a CEN Worksh op Agreement (CWA) on «Guidelines for the 
design, implementation and operation of a product  property server». These guidelines will be 
drawn on the basis of data tested mainly in two industrial sectors - heating, ventilation, air-
conditioning, sanitary-ware (HVAC) and optical - and then extended to other industries. 
e-PRIOR (e-Invoicing and e-Ordering Pilot) 
Project established within the Commission to  produce business requirements for e-Invoicing 
systems in a public procurement context and cross border environment and set up an e-
Invoicing and e-Ordering pilot to be used by DI GIT and some of its suppliers. An e-Catalogue 
component is in production. 
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)  
An ERP is an integrated computer-based syst em used to manage internal and external 
resources including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources.  
e-Senders/e-Notices 
e-Notifications can be sent via online forms or  via the e-Senders platform, which relies on 
registered service providers th at have implemented standard XML forms in their software. 
The online forms are free, and are typically used  by contracting authorit ies which send only a 
limited amount of notices each year, whereas the e-Senders platform is oriented more towards 
larger users. 
EU (European Union) 
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)  
FTP is a standard network protocol used to copy a file from one host to another over a 
TCP/IP-based network, such as the Internet.  
 
EN 96   EN Framework Agreement 
An agreement between one or more contract ing authorities and one or more economic 
operators, the purpose of which is to establish the terms governing contracts to be awarded 
during a given period, in particul ar with regard to price and,  where appropriate, the quantity 
envisaged. 
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) 
GPA (Government Procurement Agreement) 
The GPA establishes a set of rules which (a) g overn the procurement activities of its Parties 
and (b) enable the Agreement to function as an international one. 
GDP (Gross Domestic Product) 
A measure of a country's overall economic output. It  is the market value of all final goods and 
services made within the borde rs of a country in a year. 
GPC (Global Products Classification) 
GPC is the products classification of GS1, an  organisation that works for the design and 
implementation of global standards 
IDABC 
Interoperable Delivery of European e-Gove rnment Services to public Administrations, 
Businesses and Citizens. A Commission programme developing recommendations and, 
solutions and providing services helping Eu ropean public services to communicate 
electronically. 
Interoperability 
A property referring to the abil ity of diverse systems and orga nisations to work together 
(inter-operate). The term is often used in  a technical systems engineering sense, or 
alternatively in a broad sense, taking into ac count social, political, and organisational factors 
that impact system to system performance. 
Invoice 
The invoice is a document or a data set marked  with the word ‘invoice’, formally specifying 
details of a (or part of a) trad e and all settlement related inform ation for the (or part of the) 
trade, explicitly and separately stating the applicable tax. 
ICT (Information and comm unication technologies) 
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 
Organisation developing international standa rds and other types of  normative documents. 
IT (Information technology) 
 
EN 97   EN ITT (Invitation to Tender) 
A call for bids  or call for tenders  or invitation to tender  (ITT) (often called tender for short) is 
a special procedure for generating competing o ffers from different bi dders looking to obtain 
an award of business activity in work s, supply, or service contracts.  
MDB (Multilateral Development Bank) 
Institution created by a group of countries, which provides  financing and professional 
advising for the purpose of development. MD Bs have large memberships including both 
developed donor countries and developing borrowe r countries. MDBs finance projects in the 
form of long-term loans at market rates, very-long term loans (also known as credits) below 
market rates, and through grants. 
The following are usually classified as the main MDBs: 
• World Bank  
• African Development Bank  
• Asian Development Bank  
• European Bank for Reconstruction and Development  
• Inter-American Development Bank Group  
MEPA (The Italian Electronic Public Administration's Marketplace) 
MS (Member State) 
Member State of the European Union 
NES (Northern European Subset) 
NES was formed in January 2006 with the obj ective to facilitate th e establishment of a 
common platform for e-commerce in national and cross border trade. Currently, the initiative 
comprises government representation from si x countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Great 
Britain, Iceland and Denmark. The technical deve lopment of NES is now carried out in the 
CEN/ISSS Workshop BII. 
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) 
OASIS is a not-for-profit consortium that driv es the development, convergence and adoption 
of standards in many domains, including We b services, security, and e-business.  
OECD (Organisation for Economic  Co-operation and Development) 
OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) 
The Official Journal of the European Union is the gazette of record for the European Union.  
OP (Publications office of the European Union) 
 
EN 98   EN PDF (Portable Document Format) 
PDF is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is used 
for representing two-dimensional documents in a device-independent and display resolution-
independent fixed-layout document format. 
PEPPOL (Pan-European Pub lic Procurement Online) 
PEPPOL is a large scale pilot project, with the ob jective to pilot solution s to make it easier for 
European economic operators, in particular SMEs , from one country to respond electronically 
and in an interoperable way to public procur ement opportunities and carry out the subsequent 
business transactions, including invoicing. 
PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) 
Public Key Infrastructure is a set of hardwa re, software, people, policies, and procedures 
needed to create, manage, distribute, use,  store, and revoke di gital certificates. In 
cryptography, a PKI is an  arrangement that binds public keys  with respective user identities 
by means of a certificate authority  (CA). The user identity mu st be unique within each CA 
domain. The binding is establis hed through the registration a nd issuance process, which, 
depending on the level of assurance the binding ha s, may be carried out by software at a CA, 
or under human supervision. The PKI role that assures this binding is called the Registration 
Authority (RA). For each user, the user identity, the public key, their binding, validity conditions and other attributes are made unforgeable in public key certificates  issued by the 
CA. 
PP (Public procurement)  
A procedure initiated by a contracting authorit y with a view of acquiring goods, services or 
public works for the fulfilment of its tasks. 
PPN (Public Procurement Network) 
Qualified Electronic Signature 
Advanced electronic signature s which are based on a qualifie d certificate and which are 
created by a secure-signature-creation device. 
Qualified Certificate 
A digital certificate issued by a supervised/accredited Certification Service Provider (CSP) 
and which meets the following requirements: 
• the indication that the certificate is  issued as a qualified certificate 
• the identification of the Certification Authority and the State (European or foreigner) in 
which it is established 
• the name (or pseudonym) of the signatory, to identify her/him 
• signature-verification da ta which correspond to signature-cre ation data under the control of 
the signatory 
• the indication of the period of  validity of the certificate 
 
EN 99   EN • the identity code of the certificate 
• the advanced electronic signature of the certification-service-provider (Certification 
Authority) 
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) 
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to  publish frequently updated works—such as blog 
entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardised format. An RSS document 
(which is called a "feed",  "web feed", or "channel") incl udes full or summarised text, plus 
metadata such as publishi ng dates and authorship.  
SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) 
The Single Euro Payments Area will be the area where citizens, companies and other 
economic actors will be able to make and receiv e payments in euro, within Europe, whether 
between or within national boundaries under the same basic conditions, rights and obligations, regardless of their locati on. It consists of the European Un ion Member States plus Iceland, 
Norway, Liechtenste in and Switzerland. 
SLA (Service Level Agreement) 
A service-level agreement is a negotiated agreement between two parties where one is the 
customer and the other is the service provide r. This can be a legally binding formal or 
informal 'contract'. 
Service Provider 
Entities that provide services to end-users offe r wide variety of business services and models 
ranging from supply chain and procurement serv ices, software and integration services, 
invoice and related document transmission an d networks and integration with financial 
services. 
SIMAP 
The SIMAP portal provides access to most im portant information about public procurement 
in Europe. 
SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprise) 
The category of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises is made up of enterprises which 
employ fewer than 250 persons and have an annual turnover not exceeding 50 million euro, 
and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding 43 million EUR. 
SMS (Short Message Service) 
SMS is a form of text messaging on mobile phones. 
SPOCS (Simple Procedures Online for Cross border Services) 
SPOCS is a pilot project launched by the European Commission which aims to remove the 
administrative barriers European businesses face in offering their servi ces abroad, notably in 
the context of the implementati on of the Services Directive. 
 
EN 100   EN STORK (Secure Identity Across Borders Linked) 
A pilot project to enable the interoperability  of electronic identification solutions between 
participating Member States.  
TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) 
TED is the online version of th e 'Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union', 
dedicated to European public procurement. 
TFEU (The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) 
TRUST (Transparent Reliable Unhindered Secure Tendering) 
Part of a study for which the objective was to identify, analyse and compare optimum 
mechanisms for verifying in all EU/EEA Member States that the systems and tools existing or 
forthcoming in electronic public procurement co mply with the requirements of the new public 
procurement Directives 2004/18/EC and 2004/17/EC. 
TTP (Trusted Third Party) 
In order to limit the transmission of identifier s and thus also the compilation of user profiles 
by third parties, the Trusted Computing Group makes it possible for a tr usted third party to 
certify users’ identities and confirm them to  their correspondents without actually revealing 
the identities. 
UBL (Universal Business Language) 
UBL is a library of standard electronic XML bus iness documents such as purchase orders and 
invoices. UBL was developed by a Technica l Committee in OASIS (an industry standards 
consortium) with participation from a variety of i ndustry data standards organisations. Under 
an agreement between UN/CEFACT and OASIS , UBL requirements will be taken up in 
modifications to the relevant UN/CEFACT standards documents, including the CII. 
UN/CEFACT 
The United Nations’ Centre for Trade Facilita tion and Electronic Business has a global remit 
to secure the interoperability for the excha nge of information between private and public 
sector entities. It has devel oped UN/EDIFACT, the internationa l standard for electronic data 
interchange together with suppor ting components and methodologies. 
UNCITRAL 
The United Nations Commission for International Trade Law 
UN/EDIFACT 
The United Nations / Electronic Data Inte rchange for Administration, Commerce and 
Transport. 
URL (Uniform Resource Locator) 
Link to a website  
VAT (Value added tax) 
 
EN 101   EN VCD (Virtual Company Dossier) 
The Virtual Company Dossier (VCD) was devel oped within the PEPPOL pilot project, as a 
container used to exchange information among tenderers and procurers in the tendering stage 
to improve the outcomes of the tendering process.  
WTO (World Trade Organisation) 
XML 
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a set of rules for encoding documents electronically. 
It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification pro duced by the W3C, and several other related 
specifications, all gratis open standards. 
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-Time.lex report 
 
EN 102   EN ANNEX II - Bibliography  
Regulatory framework for e-Procurement,  policy documents and internal reports  
Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parl iament of 13 Dec 1999 on a Community 
framework for electronic signatures , European Parliament, December 1999, OJEC 
Directive 2004/17/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 
coordinating the procurement proc edures of entities op erating in the water, energy, transport 
and postal services sectors , Directive, April 2004, DG MARKT website  
Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Par liament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on 
the coordination of procedures for the awar d of public works contracts, public supply 
contracts and public service contracts , Directive, April 2004, DG MARKT website  
Commission Regulation (EC) No  1564/2005 of 7 September 2005 establishing standard forms 
for the publication of notices in  the framework of pub lic procurement pro cedures pursuant to 
Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC of th e European Parliament and of the Council,  
Commission Regulation, Oct ober 2005, DG MARKT website 
Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added 
tax, which is effectively a recast of the Si xth VAT Directive of 1977 as amended over the 
years, Council Directive, November 2006, Europa website 
Directive 2005/51/EC of 7 September 2005 am ending Annex XX to Directive 2004/17/EC and 
Annex VIII to Directive 2004/18/ EC of the European Parliame nt and the Council on public 
procurement , Directive, October 2005, DG MARKT website 
Directive 2007/64/EC of the European Parlia ment and of the Council of 13 November 2007 
on payment services in the internal mar ket amending Directi ves 97/7/EC, 2002/65/EC, 
2005/60/EC and 2006/48/EC and repealing Directiv e 97/5/EC Text with EEA relevance, 
November 2007, Europa website  
Commission Regulation amending Regulati on (EC) N° 2195/2002 of the European 
Parliament and of the Council on the Common Pr ocurement Vocabulary (CPV and Directives 
2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on public 
procurement procedures, as regards the revision of the CPV , Commission Regulation, 
November 2007, DG MARKT website 
UNCITRAL Model law on Procurement of G oods, Construction and Services – possible 
revisions, UNCITRAL study group , March 2009, UNCITRAL website 
European Commission, Commission White Paper - Modernising ICT Standardisation in the 
EU - The Way Forward , July 2009, DG ENTR website 
European Commission, Action Plan for the implementati on of the legal framework for 
electronic public procurement, December 2004, DG MARKT website 
Commission Staff Working Document, Extended Impact Assessment - Proposal for an Action 
Plan for the implementation of the legal fram ework for electronic public procurement - 
Extended impact assessment, December 2004 , DG MARKT website 
European Commission, Commission e-Procurement Busine ss Survey Results of the online 
consultation , January 2005, DG MARKT website 
 
EN 103   EN European Parliament, Report on specific problems in the transposition and implementation of 
Public Proc. Legislation and its relation to the Lisbon agenda, July 2006 , European 
Parliament website  
Council of the EU, Council’s Outcome of Proceedings report of 16 March 2010 , March 2010, 
Council website 
European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European 
Parliament, The European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the 
Regions, "Think Small First", " A Small Business Act" for Europe , Commission 
Communication, June 2008, DG ENTR website 
Reports, Benchmarking, Surveys, External studies  
Albano G.L., Dini F., Zampino R., Fana M., The determinants of suppliers’ performance in e-
Procurement: evidence from the electronic public adminis tration’s marketplace (MEPA) , 
August 2008, CONSIP website 
Austrian Austrian Federal Procurem ent Agency (Bundesbeschaffung GmbH) – National 
Report- AT, 2008 , Bundesbeschaffung GmbH website 
Austrian Federal Chancellery, National report – AT: 2008 Administration on the Net - The 
ABC guide of e-Government in Austria,  July 2008, ePractice website  
Beschaffungskommission des Bundes BKB - Informatikstrategieorgan Bund ISB, National 
reports – CH: 2006-2008 Reports on e-Procurement strategy in the Swiss Federation 
Billentis , 2009 Billentis study  on e-Invoicing / e-Billing in Europe , External study, February 
2009, Billentis website 
Capgemini, Rand Europe, IDC, Sogeti and DTI, Smater, Faster, Better e-Government, 8th 
Benchmark Measurement , November 2009, External study for the Commission, DG INFSO 
website 
Capgemini, Report on SEPA: potential  benefits at stake , External study for the Commission, 
September 2007, DG MARKT website 
Carsa, Compliance Verification in electronic public procurement , External study for the 
Commission, September 2007, DG MARKT website 
CONSIP, National reports – IT: 2009 CONSIP repor ts "The determinants of suppliers’ 
performance in e-Procurement: evidence from the electronic public administration’s 
marketplace (MEPA)", August 2008, CONSIP website 
Court of Audit (Cour de s Comptes – Rekenhof), National report – BE: 2008 report of the 
Court of Audit (Cour des Comptes – Rekenhof) on  framework contracts in central purchasing 
bodies, February 2008 , National website 
Croatian Ministry of the Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship, “Strategy for the 
Development of Electronic Business in the Re public of Croatia for the period 2007-2010", 
October 2007, Ministry website 
Curtin University, International survey of e-Procurement systems , External study for 
Multilateral Dev. Bank, May 2007, DG MARKT website 
 
EN 104   EN CWA 15236 - Analysis of standardization require ments and standardization gaps for e-
Procurement in Europe , CEN Workshop Agreement, February 2005, CEN website 
Czech Ministry for Regional Development, National Plan for the Introduction of Electronic 
Public Procurement over the Period 2006 – 2010, National portal 
DG MARKT, Certificates issued on th e eligibility of tenderers and official lists of economic 
operators , April 2006, DG MARKT website 
Dimitri, N. Piga G., Spagnolo, G., Handbook of Procurement , Cambridge University Press, 
2006 
DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, Legal Study on unfair commerc ial practices within B2B e-
markets - Final Report , External study for the Comm ission, May 2006, DG ENTR website 
DLA Piper, EU Study on the specific policy needs fo r ICT standardization – final report, 
External study for the Commi ssion, July 2007, DG ENTR website 
Eidgenössisches Finanzdepartement EFD  - , November 2008, ePractice website 
EIM Business and Policy Research, Improve Access of Small Businesses to Public 
Procurement , External Study for the Commi ssion, April 2005, DG ENTR website 
Eldoc, Legal study on legal and admi nistrative practices regardi ng the validity and mutual 
recognition of electronic documents, with a view  to identifying the existing legal barriers for 
enterprises, External study for the Commission, 1st in terim report (Country reports), July 
2006, Final report, November 2006, IDABC website  
Europe Economics, Evaluation of "old" Public Procurement Directives , External study for the 
Commission, September 2006, DG MARKT website 
European Commission, European  Electronic Invoicing (EEI) – Final Report, European 
Commission Informal Task Force on e-Invoicing , July 2007, DG INFSO website 
European Commission, IDABC e-Invoicing and e-Ordering pr oject for public procurement, e-
Catalogue Feasibility Study , October 2009, IDABC website  
European Commission, Infringements (DG MARKT ), DG MARKT website 
European Commission, Report on the operation of Dire ctive 1999/93/EC on a Community 
framework for electronic signatures , Commission Report, Ma rch 2006, DG INFSO website 
European Commission, Requirements for conducting public procurement using electronic 
means under the new public procuremen t Directives 2004/18/EC and 2004/17/EC, 
Explanatory Document  , Commission Staff Working Document, July 2005, DG MARKT 
website 
European Dynamics, Case studies on European electroni c public procurement projects – 
consultant report, Exter nal study for the Commission , July 2004, DG MARKT website 
European Dynamics, e-Catalogues in electronic public procurement , External study for the 
Commission, November 2007, DG MARKT website 
European Dynamics, Electronic transmission of public procurement notices for publication , 
External study for the Commissi on, September 2007, DG MARKT website 
 
EN 105   EN European Dynamics, Functional Requirements for conduc ting e-Procurement under the EU 
framework (IDABC programme) , External study for the Commission, January 2005, DG 
MARKT website 
French Economics and Finance Ministry, Statistical procurement information  - Observatoire 
Economique de l'Achat Public  (OEAP) – Ministry website 
Ghk, Technopolis , Evaluation of SMEs’ access to public procurement markets in the EU , 
External study for the Commission, 2007, DG ENTR website 
ICT Policy Support Programme (PSP), Guidelines to Common Specifications for Cross-
border Use of Public Procurement , April 2007, DG INFSO website 
IDABC, European IDA Bridge and Gateway - CA Pilot EBGCA , October 2005, IDABC 
website 
IDABC, IDABC e-Signature Workshop , January 2008, IDABC website 
Irish Department of Finance, National Public Procurement Policy Unit, Improving SME 
Access to Public Procurement, 2007, eTender website 
K.U.Leuven – ICRI, Study on the Legal and Market As pects of Electroni c Signatures in 
Europe (ELSIGN Study ), External Study for the Comm ission, September 2003, DG INFSO 
website 
Le portail des marchés publics pour les PME, Les mesures favorisant les PME dans le CMP 
2006 , Marchés Publics PME website 
Luís Valadares Tavares, European Vortal Academy , Public e-Tendering in the European 
Union- Trust in eVolution, April-10 
Luís Valadares Tavares, National report – PT: 2009 Public  Electronic Procurement and New 
Portuguese Legal Framework , May 2009, National Website 
National Audit Office (NAO), National reports – UK: 2004 and 2006 reports from the 
National Audit Office (NAO) on public proc urements, particularly via the Office of 
Government Commerce (OGC) , December 2006, NAO website 
Procurement data, Public procurement advertised in the Official Journal (as a % of total 
public procurement and as a % of GDP),  Eurostat website 
Public Procurement- An overview of re gulation in 43 jurisdictions worldwide , 2009, 
Kelemenis & co website 
Rambøll Management, Benchmarking of existing national le gal e-business practices, from the 
POV of enterprises (e-Signatur e, e-Invoicing and e-Contracts) , External study for the 
Commission, November 2006, IDABC website 
Rambøll Management, Extended Impact Assessment: Acti on Plan on electronic Public 
Procurement, External study for the Commission , Baseline Analysis - Consultant Report 
Vol. ,1Baseline Scenario - Consultant Report Vo l. 2, Country reviews (extract from Extended 
Impact Assessment - Baseline Analysis), December 2004, DG MARKT website  
 
EN 106   EN RSO – IDC, Benchmarking Framework - Pilot 2 to Develop and Improve the e-Government 
Indicators LOT 2 2007 edition (e-Procurement ) - Key findings and recommendations of the 
Pilot Study on e-Procurement (presentation) , External Study for the Commission, December 
2007, DG INFSO website 
Sealed, Study on the standardisation aspects of e-Signature , External study for the 
Commission, November 2007, DG INFSO website 
Siemens-time.lex, Preliminary Study on the Mutual Recognition of e-Signatures for e-
Government applications (IDABC , External study for th e Commission, November 2007, 
IDABC website 
Siemens-time.lex, Study on Mutual Recognition of e-Si gnatures update of Country Profiles, 
External study for the Commission, July 2009, IDABC website 
Siemens-time.lex, Study on the evaluation of  the Action Plan for the implementation of the 
legal framework for el ectronic procurement , External study for the Commission, May 2010, 
Not yet published 
Siemens, e-Certificates II: Preliminary study on th e electronic provision of certificates and 
attestations usually required in public procurement procedures  – Update of National Country 
Profiles, External study for the Commi ssion, May 2009, DG MARKT website 
Siemens, e-Certificates Study – Preliminary Study on the electronic provision of certificates 
and attestations usually required in public procurement procedures , External study for the 
Commission, February 2008, DG MARKT website 
Siemens, e-Certificates Study – Preliminary Study on the electronic provision of certificates 
and attestations usually required in public pr ocurement procedures- 1st Interim Report - 
National Country Profiles , External study for the Commi ssion, September 2007, DG MARKT 
website 
Siemens, e-Certificates Study – Preliminary Study on the electronic provision of certificates 
and attestations usually required in public pr ocurement procedures- 3rd Interim Report - 
Scenario building, assessment and benchmarking, February 2008, DG MARKT website 
SIMAP, Standard forms for public procurement and e-Notices , SIMAP website  
Stoiber Group , 2008 Opinion of the High Level Group of Independent Stakeholders on 
Administrative Burdens, on the Reform of the rules on invoicing and electronic invoicing in 
Directive  2006/112/EC (VAT Directive); DG ENTR website 
TNS Sofres, National report – FR: 2007 Qualitative  study on “The perception of 
dematerialisation , October 2008, National website 
TXT e-solutions, e-Procurement Forum – e-Procurement Online survey, External study for 
the Commission , June 2008, ePractice website 
University of Bremen, PROCURE PROJECT - Effects of national laws in Spain, Czech 
Republic and France on the service and functi onal scenarios for the solution - Electronic 
Signatures as Obstacle for Cross- Border e-Procurement in Europe , External study for the 
Commission, Mars 2009, ETEN website 
 
EN 107   EN World Trade Organisation, Revision of the agreement on go vernment procurement as at 8 
December 2006 , December 2006, WTO website 
Other consulted sites (see also Annex VII)  
Digital signatur e http://www.sk.ee 
Elektronish handel i den offentliga sektorn, http://www.svefaktura.se/ 
ePractice, http://www.epractice.eu/ 
European e-Business lab http://www.euebl.or 
Factura electronica, ht tp://www.facturae.es 
Fiche pratique France: l'accord ca dre, http://www.publictendering.com 
Finvoice online invoice for businesses and e-invo ice for consumers, http://www.finvoice.info/ 
Guidelines and Functional Requireme nts, November 2009, IDABC website  
Oasis – Universal Business Language  (UBL) http://www.oasis-open.org 
PEPPOL website Pan-European Public Procurement on line http://www.peppol.eu 
Public procurement network http:/ /www.publicprocurementnetwork.org/ 
Publication office, http://publications.europa.eu/ 
Publiskās un privātās partnerības, http://www.ppp.gov.lv/ 
SIMAP, http://simap.europa.eu 
Single European Payment Area, DG MARKT website 
The Open Source Observatory and Repository  for European public administrations , 
OSOR.eu  
TRIAS Wiki, the e-Government Encyclope dia, http://wiki.triastelematica.org 
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex report
 
EN 108   EN ANNEX III – What is e-Procurement?  
1. INTRODUCTION 
This document examines common functionalitie s of an e-Procurement system across all 
phases of a procurement process. It is not in tended as a reference framework for building e-
Procurement applications. It just presents a nd discusses some of the implementation options 
available to a public organisation's system planners and designers when setting up an e-Procurement solution, taking into account th e potential of current technology, common 
approaches that are emerging in existing e-Pr ocurement operations and the goals pursued by 
the 2004 e-Procurement Action Plan. 
2. FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ELEMENTS OF E-
PROCUREMENT 
The various functionalities of an e-Procuremen t system, across all the sequential phases of a 
typical procurement process, are examined below. 
2.1 E-Notification 
The first element of an e-Procurement system is , in general, the provisi on of web-based tools 
for creating and publishing the various public proc urement notices. This usually involves the 
automatic generation of an XML notice for publica tion in the Official Journal of the European 
Union (OJEU). Such notices are mandatory for procurement above the threshold set out in the EU Directives. 
Within this element all the standard comm unication types should be  supported: advance 
notices, contract notice, contract awarded, etc. 
Sophisticated systems supporting the w hole e-tendering process may handle notice 
preparation as part of the overall  preparation for a new call. Where this is the case, the call for 
tender's manager is asked to enter the call's data only once and the system is able to 
(transparently) use such data to generate the not ice, together with the overall workflow for the 
full procedure. 
The system should have the capability to gene rate multiple XML outputs in order to publish 
the same data through all the communication channels prescrib ed by law including, where 
relevant, possible third parties and public an d privately-operated information resources 
grouping business opportunities. 
2.2 Registration 
Most e-Procurement systems include a registra tion module enabling the business parties that 
take part in a procurement process to be uni quely identified. An account is created on the 
system for each actor taking part in the proc ess (e.g. the call's managers, the evaluation 
committee members, the tenderers). 
Two major approaches have been id entified for registering tenderers: 
• Once-and-for-all registration, enabling the register ed tenderers to take part in multiple calls 
issued by the same awarding authorities; 
 
EN 109   EN • Call-basis registration - which involves partic ipation in one call at  a time. A new account 
(with the associated registration pr ocess) is set up for each call.  
Once-and-for-all registration may help procurer s streamline the administrative process. Where 
permitted by the national law implementing the Directive, the registration phase may enable submission of the relevant certificates and attest ations relating to the selection and exclusion 
criteria which remain valid for all the competitive procedures held by a single contracting authority on that particular system (with refreshment of data at agreed time intervals or upon changes of status).  
Registration may be scheduled at various  stages of the procurement process. 
In principle, the earlier the registration is done  the greater the control the call manager has on 
the process at the pre-tendering st age. If tenderers get registered  at a preliminary stage (e.g. 
when they have shown their interest in the cal l by downloading the tende r specifications) then 
subsequent stages and phases (especially commun ications) can be more efficiently controlled, 
because the user group being set up around a speci fic call for tenders can be profiled at an 
early stage to the advantage of  the contracting authority.  
However, to foster the maximum possible number of tenderers, an e-Procurement solution 
should not place burdens
 on interested parties. It would be  more beneficial to let would-be 
procurers freely download specifications and su bmit enquiries without prior registration. All 
the communication issues could be solved by publis hing news on a web page reserved for 
each specific call, which is open to everybody (in this case the contracting authority will have 
to specify in the terms of reference that al l interested tenderers must check this page 
regularly). 
This would permit registration to remain open until the very end of the pre-tendering phase – 
i.e. when the would-be tenderer actually decide s to submit a proposal - and closed forever on 
conclusion of the call at hand. 
A challenge for registration at the moment is to  develop the ability for a business to register 
once on an e-Procurement system and this regist ration to be automatical ly accepted by other 
systems, leveraging off a shared (standar d) distributed ID management model. 
2.3 Generation and publication of a call's terms of reference (TOR)  
The Terms of Reference documentation (TOR) is the set of specifications and directions for 
tenderers interested in re sponding to a call for tender. 
The Contracting Authority draws up the TOR a nd publishes it so that interested companies 
can get all the relevant information (incl uding for example downloa ding specific tools for 
local use) to respond to the call for tender. 
The TOR editing and publication process is dependent on the e-submission mechanism  
supported by the procurement system. Two major application classes ca n be profiled based on 
the way the e-submission pro cess is currently handled: 
• Support for the communication process only; 
• Support for preparing both the content of th e TOR and the response by an interested 
company (support to both parties). 
 
EN 110   EN 2.3.1 Support for the communication process 
Certain types of systems do not offer content -related functionality but rather handle the 
communication process only. Such systems just fo cus on the process and transactions to be 
exchanged between the Contracting Authority a nd the tenderers using the underlying secure 
platform for e-submission.  
For such systems the TOR is usually just a document (typically PDF). The Contracting 
Authority prepares the tendering specifications off line, as in a traditional paper-based process, 
using standard office tools, for later publication on the website.  
To respond to such a type of call, the tenderer too prepares the documentation in the format of 
unstructured, textual documents. The tenderer also generates PDF documents and sends (or 
uploads) them, upon completion, to the Contracting Authority we bsite within the deadline, 
following the rules established in the TOR. Th e platform is just the means to perform e-
submission, replacing the traditional registered mail-based submission. 
2.3.2 Support of the tendering content preparation 
The other main type of system supports to a large extent the management of the tendering 
contents. This system offers a tool for: 
i) The Contracting Author ity to prepare the call's terms of reference, and 
ii) Tenderers to prepare their individual respon ses meeting the formal, legal, technical and 
management requirements set out in the call. 
Specifications may be structured as catalogue-based forms, that the Contracting Authority sets 
up and publishes on the website for the responding tenderers to fill in (probably, but not 
necessarily, online – see below).  
The specifications preparation proc ess can be described as follows: 
• Using a form generator, the Contracting Auth ority prepares on screen the list of products 
and services being procured (i.e. the technical specifications attached to the call for tender) 
providing details of all relevant characteristics for each of them; 
• Certain systems might require the Contracting Authority to freely write product/services 
item descriptions e.g. on an Excel sheet, whil e other systems might enable the Contracting 
Authority to download the product definitions from a product property server . The product 
property server is a databa se describing market products and services and their 
characteristics. The database may be part of th e e-proc system itself or an external service 
provided by third parties in the form of an  ASP service (see below). The process is 
designed to let the Cont racting Authority select the item s to be procured and all other 
elements (e.g. delivery time, ancillary services, etc.) from a product/services catalogue. 
• On completion of the selection, the Contracting Authority instru cts the system to make the 
resulting form(s) available on the procuremen t website. To complete the package, the 
form(s) are accompanied by all the supporting documents (e.g. descri ption of projects 
context, instructions for tenderers, draft c ontract, etc.). Therefore to complete the 
publication process the Contracting Authority ha s to upload on its website all the relevant 
documents not just the catalogue  information it has created. 
 
EN 111   EN Once the TOR package (the catalogue file and attached documents) is loaded on the system 
and published on the internet, the call is open for tenderers to prepare and submit their 
proposals. 
Each tenderer responding to th e call accesses the catalogue form (various process models can 
be defined for this particular pr ocedure – see below) a nd fills in the fields that are requested 
for each item of the call, thereby providing the de tailed specification of the product or service 
they can provide. 
The catalogue-based model described presents  a number of challe nges and opportunities 
including: 
1) Use of standards-based  catalogues. If the system uses  a standards-based, third-party 
product server to prepare the form, th e following benefit can be achieved: 
• The same view of the products/services being procured as defined within the 
Contracting Authority's e-proc system is  shared by any counterpart system (e.g. 
ERP) potentially used by th e supplier. As a result, by mapping the tenderer's 
catalogue information onto the Contracti ng Authority's catalogue information, a 
tenderer's system could be set up to automatically perform most stages of preparing a response to a call (including decisions such as the capability or 
opportunity for the tenderer to actually respond  to that particular  call), leaving the 
tenderer with the ultimate task of dete rmining any possible pr ice reduction and/or 
technical improvements with in a particular bid; 
• The intrinsic language independence of  a standard-based catalogue would 
maximise the chance for cross-border par ticipation, as the cata logue data can be 
prepared in any language by the Contracting Authorit y and read in another 
language by the suppliers; 
2) Maximising the use of structured in formation to define product/services 
characteristics as opposed to textual descriptions would minimise human interpretation at the proposal's evaluati on stage (see below, e-Evaluation). This 
increases the specification effort from th e Contracting Authority , but decreases the 
risk of challenges because the evaluation cr iteria are specified in detail in the TOR 
and detected on the proposal in  an automatic, unbiased manner. 
3) Process control tools would enable a hi gh degree of support for all parties throughout 
the e-Procurement phases thereby reducing the ri sk of errors as well as the time to be 
devoted to ancillary tasks. 
2.4 Managing question / answer session s on a call's terms of reference 
As soon as the complete set of specifications  and the TOR documenta tion are online, would-
be tenderers are entitled to ask the Co ntracting Authority for clarifications. 
An e-procurement system can group all the info rmation relating to a specific call in a 
recognisable web section open for wide consultation. Using common web-content 
management tools (e.g. a web form), the C ontracting Authority's website should enable 
interested parties to submit queri es to the Contracting Authority within a time limit that is to 
be set by the Contracting Authority in the TOR.  
 
EN 112   EN The same tool should enable the Contracting Au thority to prepare responses and publish them 
in a recognisable chapter of th e same section. Questions and answ ers are an integral part of 
the TOR. As such, they shall remain on line fo r public consultation together with all other 
TOR material. 
A particular issue arises in cas e of clarifications or  rectifications affecting a catalogue-based 
specification set. This may require a further sp ecification or modification of some catalogue 
items. The system should therefore enable th e Contracting Authority  to publish a revised 
catalogue while, for documentation purpose, ma intaining the previ ous version of the 
catalogue available under a tracking system eas ily visible and accessible by the interested 
tenderers. 
2.5 E-Access to tender specification 
The publication system should enable free acce ss to all the tendering documentation by any 
interested party wishing to gain  an understanding of all the details of the call for tender. 
In general this is all the acces s functionality that an e-pr oc system supporting a simple 
electronic document submission needs to enable. Interested tenderers, once the specification 
are downloaded on their local system, prepare th eir response locally using standard office 
tools. 
Similarly, catalogue-based systems just need to  support the downloading functionality  if they 
do not offer interactive access to the e-catalogue. The e-catalogue  is a common file that the 
tenderers download onto their own local systems for further processing by some "tender response editing" software. Such software may be a common spreadsheet or a specialised application that the tenderer may download from the Contracting Authority's website itself. In a near future, the tenderer may already have such specialised software available locally, 
embedded in their own ERP system and capable  of performing an automatic mapping of the 
tenderer's local catalogue (i.e. wh at the tenderer can offer within  a given set of products and 
services) to the call's catalogue (i.e. what the Contrac ting Authority is aski ng within a specific 
call for tenders). 
Finally, some catalogue-based systems may offe r an on-line tender response editor. This 
would be a web application operating on the C ontracting Authority's website enabling the 
tenderer-user to navigate in a st ructured fashion between all th e requested catalogue items and 
to provide detailed response data. To  do so, the system needs to feature: 
• A user workspace where tenderers can store all their dr afts and relevant documents that are 
necessary for preparing their respons e until the deadline for submission
; 
• A set of security measures, including tracking and auditing mechanisms, to ensure the 
"inviolability" of the proposal until the openi ng process begins (see below). That means 
that top-level confidentially is to be enforced  against potential access to data from anybody 
(especially in the Contracting Authority's organisation, including sy stem administrators) 
other than designated "editors" a ppointed by the candidate tenderers. 
Systems supporting the tender editorial process s hould enable submission versioning, i.e. the 
tenderer may complete the uploading of the docum ents in subsequent stages, even modifying 
the contents of documents already submitted until  the deadline expires (at that stage, only the 
final version of the submission would be retained for subsequent processing). 
 
EN 113   EN 2.6 E-Submission 
Once the tenderer, with or wit hout web application support, has completed their response to 
the TOR, then the tender package is either uploaded to the platform or sent via an asynchronous, email-type communication channel (e .g. standard email – with various security 
mechanisms on top – or a dedicated communica tion infrastructure such as the one being 
developed by PEPPOL) according to the instru ctions provided by the Contracting Authority 
in the TOR.  
At this stage, several issues arise, that need to be tackled by the e-proc system in such a way 
as to not artificially restrict the range of potential tenderers based on the technology and 
process being used.  
The problem areas are indi vidually addressed below. 
2.6.1 Certification of submission time 
The alternative submission methods require a completely different approach as to the 
certification of the submission time: 
• In the uploading model, the e-Procurement system issues a digitally signed receipt 
certifying date and time of submission; 
• In the asynchronous transmission model (e.g. PEPPOL) an external time stamping service 
is required (at the moment this poses a cros s-border obstacle as an interoperable EU-wide 
time stamping system does not exist). 
2.6.2 Authentication of the submission 
Authentication of submission has to do with the mechanisms en forced by the e-proc solution 
to ensure that: 
• The tender is submitted by a physical person w ho effectively is the person that he/she 
purports to be (i.e. the person legiti mate to commit the tendering business); 
• The tenderer cannot deny having submitted a proposal; 
• The material that is submitted is not altered (accidentally or on purpose) from the very 
moment it is sent by the officer au thorised by the te nderer to submit. 
At the moment the level of assu rance that an e-proc solution ha s to enforce against the above 
risks is established by the national implem entation of the procur ement Directives.  
Contracting Authorities in certain Member States are allowed to use a simple user 
registration-based model. In such Member Stat es, the law recognises th e legal value of an 
electronic transaction replacing traditional si gned tendering documents, and attaches a 
sufficient level of assurance to user-id an d password to permit user identification and 
authorisation as well as for non-re pudiation. However, for such systems, it is important that a 
security token (e.g. a digital cer tificate for e-Signatu re) is downloaded from the Contracting 
Authority website to ensure that the docu ments being submitted are protected against 
tampering. This solution is posing no interope rability problems (inc luding cross-border). 
 
EN 114   EN In countries that mandate the use of qualified electronic signatures for e-Procurement, there 
may be various differences in the ways  electronic signatu res are used e.g.: 
• E-Procurement systems using a one-for-all registration procedure demand the tenderer to 
register once thereby enabling th e tenderer to respond to severa l calls launched within that 
particular context. In such  a scenario, the Contractin g Authority may mandate the 
submission of a unique digitally signed request  for registration. On conclusion, the user 
receives a user ID and tools that ensure top- level user authentication without requiring later 
submissions to be electronically signed. 
• One-time registration systems mandate the supplier to submit electronically signed 
proposals each time. 
Either way, there are currently interoperability problems in using electr onic signature services 
across Europe. This means that if a foreign tender  is received there is a high risk that the e-
Procurement system cannot verify the digi tal certificate supp orting the signature. 
The problem can be dealt with in a wide ra nge of ways. One solution is the work being 
undertaken by the Commission and the Member States  to establish the so called "trust list" (an 
electronic, machine-processable list that should enable cross- border verification of qualified 
electronic signatures), in th e meantime Contracting Authorities need to set up a double 
submission channel to enable foreign competitors to take part in the call. 
Another possible solution is for a call to en able those who do not ow n a compatible qualified 
electronic signature to submit an unsigned electronic file a nd simultaneously, via ordinary 
registered mail or fax, a statement - generated by the e-Procurement website itself and linked 
(maybe via a barcode) to the digital tran smission - duly signed by the company's legal 
representative. 
2.6.3 Submission of e-Attestations 
The e-Attestations that tendere rs have to attach to their proposals to demonstrate their 
suitability to take part in a call for tender are affected by problems similar to those described above for authentication. 
At present e-Attestations digitall y signed by issuers in the Member States are rarely available. 
Therefore the Contracting Authority has to enforce a transitional solution to enable 
completion of the electronic procedure in comp liance with the evidence requirements of the 
procurement Directives. 
As for the situation with incompatible electronic signatures, one solution could be for a 
Contracting Authority to allow the tenderer to: 
• Attach a provisional electronic statement within the e-tender package, in order not to 
hinder/delay the automatic processing of the submission; 
• Prepare, in parallel, a paper-based file and send it in via registered mail within a deadline 
set in the TOR. 
 
EN 115   EN 2.6.4 Confidentiality of the te nder until formal opening 
Another key aspect of the submission relates to the "inviolability" of the tender until the 
opening process begins.  
Tendering documents must be within the Contra cting Authority's document repository when 
the deadline for submission expires, but they  must also be inaccessible to everybody until the 
tenders are opened. There are se veral techniques commonly used to ensure this. One example 
is a one-time password that the tenderer select s to encipher the documents and uses at an 
agreed time to decipher the documents on the po rtal, thereby enabling au thorised persons to 
officially access the data. 
Another solution consists in ensuring that th e tendering documents do no t leave the tenderer's 
system, i.e. where they are prep ared, until the deadlin e. As soon as the de adline expires, the 
Contracting Authority's system uploads the do cuments from all tenderers' systems. This 
method has the opposite sensitiviti es: to ensure that the docum ents cannot be changed by the 
tenderers after the deadline is expired. This  would be achieved by the tenderer using time-
stamping services, to be applied to a proposal  upon the deadline there by ensuring that the 
proposal cannot be modified. This method has a large shortcoming: the current unavailability 
of an interoperable time-stam ping service across the EU.  
2.7 Tender opening process 
Once the deadline for submission has expi red the opening process begins, causing: 
1. All tendering documents to become visi ble to designated people within the 
Contracting Authority's orga nisation (i.e. tendering ev aluators and administrative 
staff); 
2. Verification of completeness of the info rmation included in each tender e-package 
submitted. Verification at this stage is probably only required in the case of systems supporting simple submission. When a syst em supports tendering preparation, the 
system is likely not to allow submission of incomplete information. However, the opening stage may result in rejection of inco mplete proposals, to be handled as part 
of the workflow; 
3. Communication to all participating tenderers of the list of tenderers admitted to the 
selection, the list of rejected tenderers on grounds of  proposal incompleteness and all 
other information that tenderers are entit led to know about their competitors.  
The opening is a formal process that in certain  Member States is carried out via a public 
procedure that all tenderers are entitled to take  part in. Therefore an e-proc system covering 
this phase needs to make available, simult aneously to all the tenderers, all relevant 
information for each single tender that must be disclosed by law, as appropriate. 
To this respect, it should be noted that in some countries the price of each tender is made 
public at the opening stage (e.g. Austria), while in other countrie s (e.g. Italy) price is the very 
last information to be disclosed/read under th e procedure – this happens after the tendering 
evaluation is completed – and made publicly available via a public procedure. In such 
situations the price must remain "inviolable" until the final opening is made. This may be a 
 
EN 116   EN major factor preventing replication of the a pplications across countri es, but does not hinder 
accessibility within countries. 
2.8 E-Selection 
E-selection is the process through  which the capability of the te nderers to deli ver the products 
/ services that are the subject of the call is checked against the exclusion and selection criteria 
stated in the TOR. Limitations or non-complian ce in any such areas lead to exclusion of the 
tender without any evaluation of the technical pr oposal on the basis that the tenderer is not 
appropriate/able to carry out the project at hand. 
E-selection could in principle be fully automate d, in that the Contracting Authority sets the 
minimum reference parameters in purely qua ntitative terms (e.g. minimum acceptable amount 
for total yearly turnover, minimum acceptable amount for turnover related to the specific 
project, absence of conviction for the tenderer representative, etc.) an d provides a standard 
electronic form to gather each tenderer's data. On this basis, the system could then check data 
against reference values and validate the tende rer's statement against the electronic supporting 
evidence attached to the tender. 
In practice the current lack of general availabil ity of e-Certificates and e-Attestations which 
are machine-processable makes it quite unlikel y that a fully automated selection can be 
conducted.  
A partially automated selection may instead be  possible in which the values stated by the 
tenderers in the electronic form for all ev idence items mandated in the TOR is checked 
against the attached  certificates and attestations by an  evaluator appointed by the Contracting 
Authority, who fills in a selection form provided by the e-proc system. 
2.9 E-Evaluation/ e-Award 
In a similar manner to e-Selection, e-Evaluation can be supported by e-pr oc systems offering 
a computer-assisted tool for: 
• Contracting Authorities to set evaluation criter ia using an electronic form, that will be 
published as part of the tendering specifications; 
• Tenderers to supply information that automati cally fills the form with performance data; 
• Evaluation panel members to assess individual  tenders and award the contract to the 
winning tenderer based on the award cr iteria established in the TOR. 
Commonly, tools handle the followi ng evaluation criteria (identifie d in the TOR) according to 
the European and national law:  
• Best price; 
• Price + technical evaluation (most economically advantageous tender); 
• Price + [technical evalua tion +] a final auction. 
Best price evaluation can be conducted by the system in a totally automated fashion. The 
price is encoded in each tender and the role of the contracting authority's evaluation panel is 
 
EN 117   EN just to verify that tenderers effectively comm it to supplying products/services requested in full 
compliance with the TOR (basically this boils  down to completeness of the tender). The 
system then automatically ranks the tenders by pr ice resulting in the choice of the best bid. 
The "Most economically advantag eous tender evalua tion" criterion requi res judgement by the 
Contracting Authority. A specifi c evaluation panel is appointed with the responsibility for 
marking the tenders based on the criteria provid ed in the TOR. To s upport this process, a 
comprehensive e-proc system may prepare and make available to designated evaluators an 
evaluation sheet, which each assessor fills in with merit indicators for each of the tenders received.  
In such instances, the electronic part of the evaluation is simply  the process of recording this 
data for each tender and performing the s ubsequent calculations. Once the designated 
evaluators have assigned performa nce marks to each characterist ic of the proposals the system 
automatically performs the ranking, combining t echnical and price score information based on 
the awarding algorithm (whose publ ication in the TOR is made mandatory in most countries) 
and generates the necess ary reports and lists. 
The auction is a further step that the Contr acting Authority may want to carry out after 
evaluation, on a short list of tenders that m eet the TOR requirements. (Obviously, such a 
choice must be clearly specified in the TOR.) 
E-Auctions involve a public interactive sess ion on the internet wh ich starts after the 
evaluation has been conducted, where th e tenderers are invited to propose: 
• Further price reduction (reverse auction) – this is the case fo r the procurement of generic, 
common and comparable products where price is the only relevant factor to affect the 
Contracting Authority's decision; 
• Further improvement of price and other signific ant aspects of the tender, which is possible 
when some features of the supply are generi c, well defined and comparable across tenders 
(e.g. delivery time) and are regarded as a key factor in determ ining the Contracting 
Authority's choice. 
E-Evaluation ends with  a ranking of bidders. 
The e-Award phase involves all the communica tions required by law to  the winner and other 
participants on the awarding de cisions made by the awarding authority. Communications may 
be handled by the system by ha ving the Contracting Authority publish individual letters, 
digitally signed, in the reserved area assigne d to each tenderer for the latter to download. 
E-Award ends with the preparation of contr actual records, containing all elements and 
characteristics of the supply that is forwarde d to the selected tenderer for final contract 
signing. This then marks the end of the pre-award phase of procurement. 
2.10 E-Ordering 
E-ordering is the process enabling: 
• Direct procurement - an order is issued to a specific supplier withou t prior selection of 
tenderers (e.g. possible in many countries fo r procurement below the threshold or under 
specific circumstances indicated by law); 
 
EN 118   EN • A specific order within a fram ework contract or a DPS. 
A fully-fledged e-ordering functionality involves the definition of e-procurement 
requirements, requirements approval and maki ng and sending orders to suppliers.  
In the case of direct procurement, requirement s are defined from scratch and a supplier is 
chosen freely – possibly from supplier lists alre ady held in the system - as no previous e-
tendering process has been carried out. In the case of  an existing framework contract or a DPS 
requirements are just specified in more deta il (e.g. quantities, delivery dates, etc), since 
product and services profiles have been spelle d out within the pre-awarding phase and the 
suppliers to be invited are those the Contracting authority  has signed a contract with. 
E-ordering is commonly achieved via the above i llustrated process of catalogue-item selection 
and preparation of an electronic fo rmal communication for the tenderer. 
2.11 E-Contract management 
E-contract management is the function that enab les the Contracting Authority to keep track of 
the supply or the provision of services. The Contracting Authority monitors contract 
performance and records all deliverables that ar e received as part of the contract. Formal 
approval statements from desi gnated reviewers are recorded. 
As soon as a deliverable or a set of deliverable s that contractually involve an agreed payment 
is released (and approved), e-I nvoicing is given green light fr om the Contracting Authority 
point of view. 
2.12 E-Invoicing 
From the point of view of a Contracting Authority organisati on, e-Invoicing is the process of 
receiving an invoice electr onically from a supplier or  service provider and: 
• Verifying that the invoice corr esponds to a payment due based on an existing order or part 
order (in case of partial paymen ts foreseen in the contract); 
• Verifying that the amount is correct against the order (see above, e-Ordering); 
• Verifying that the amount is payable because the conditions for payment as established in 
the order occur (see above, e-contract management); 
• Handling any non-compliance with regard to the above; 
• Triggering the payment; and 
• (In the case of full compliance) , archiving it in line w ith the bookkeeping obligations. 
2.13 E-Payment 
E-payment is an electronic orde r issued by the Contracting Authority's system to the financial 
institution of the Contracting Authority to proc eed with the payment of the amount due to the 
contractor.  
 
EN 119   EN 3. SUPPORT FOR DIFFERENT PUBLI C PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES 
The functions described in the previous section are variously combined to implement on an 
electronic infrastructure the diffe rent administrative procedures  and contractual arrangements 
defined in the procurement Directives. This section outlines possible ways of implementing 
such procedures. 
3.1 Open procedure 
In an open procedure wide participation of bus inesses is sought by the Contracting Authority 
who issues a general in vitation to which anybody meeting th e profile specified in the TOR 
can respond.  
In principle the Contracting Authority does no t know who is going to take part in the 
tendering process until the tendering submission  deadline. However, if the e-Procurement 
system offers would-be tenderers a tender prep aration environment then a registration process 
must be completed well before formal submission. 
Systems offering a simple submission mechanism only may allow registrati on until or as part 
of the very stage of formal submission. 
As the deadline for submission expires, the submission channel is  disabled and all tenders that 
have been submitted by that time qua lify for selection and evaluation. 
All phases outlined in sections 2.1 to 2.10 are carried out in a sequential manner. 
3.2 Restricted procedure 
In a restricted procedure, following an open invitation which everybod y can respond to by 
submitting the information specified in the TOR (in general describing the technical, financial and management capability of the company), several respondents are selected and invited to submit a proposal. 
The process is therefore split up in two phases: 
• Phase 1 includes the selection phase and en ds with a comparative evaluation of the 
tenderer capability, resulting in a shortlist of tenderers to be retain ed. The short listing 
process may be designed as a particular form  of e-Evaluation and e-Award, with all the 
implications discussed under se ctions 2.1 to either 2.8 or 2.9 resulting in a number of 
"winners" instead of  a single "winner"; 
• Phase 2 moves on from the invitation of tenderers and goes th rough a standard e-
submission process up to contract conclusion. 
3.3 Framework agreement 
In a framework contract a Contracting Authority  establishes with one or more contractors 
conditions and terms for the provision within a given time frame of a number of products and 
services. On this basis the Contracting Authorit y issues specific orders as needed, based on 
the requirements of the organisation being served. 
To support such a process a procurement system has to feature two main components:  
 
EN 120   EN • The module for selection of th e supplier (or the suppliers in  the case of framework with 
reopening of competition), offering the functi onality described in sections 2.1 to 2.9 
(namely e-notification, e-acce ss, e-submission e-Evaluation and e-Awarding) aimed at 
setting up a catalogue of products and services available for a given period of time. This 
catalogue does not immediately result in an order placed to the selected contractor but just 
in a contractual framework in which the products available unde r the contract are specified 
in all details including price; 
• The e-Ordering module, supporting the functiona lity as described under 2.10, available to 
the Contracting Authority for issuing specific or ders. If the framework is simple (i.e. there 
is only one supplier selected or a supplier is se lected for each specific  lot) then the client 
organisation navigates the catalogue of products  available and issues an order specifying, 
by means of a web transac tional application, quantities and characteristics of 
products/services. If the framework is complex (i.e. any specific order may be issued only 
on conclusion of a competitive process where th e order is placed with the supplier offering 
best price or best performan ce where performance can be described in quantitative terms) 
then the process goes through simplified ph ases of e-notification, e-submission, e-
Evaluation and e-Award. 
3.4 DPS 
A DPS implementation has a lot in common with the implementation of framework 
agreement with the reopening of competition. 
A DPS can be seen as a procurement process through which a Contract ing Authority acquires 
over time standardised (generic, common a nd comparable) goods, services or works.  
Economic operators are first invited to join a catalogue-based e-procurement system via an 
indicative tender meeting framework requireme nts defined in the TOR by the contracting 
authority running the DPS, and subsequently, when the Contracting Authority launches a 
specific procurement process, submit the details of the products / services they can provide.  
The first part of the procedure is carried out with an application suppor ting the functionality 
described under 2.1 to 2.9. The second part of th e procedure is done with a standard e-
ordering functionality supporting a competitive  supplier selection process within the 
contractor list set out in th e DPS (e-notification, e-submi ssion, e-Evaluation and e-Award). 
As opposed to framework agreement, though, a D PS system must support the publication of a 
new notice using the channels prescribed by la w (i.e. the OJEU and other sources possibly 
prescribed at national level) at any specific or der that the Contracting Authority issues, to 
allow new bidders to join in by submitting a sp ecific tender via reiteration of the process 
described under 2.1 to 2.9. 
3.5 Direct order (for purchases under the threshold) 
For procurement under threshold, a Contracting Authority has gr eater autonomy in terms of 
supplier selection. It should be noted that some Member States may have defined in their 
national law implementing the Directives a lower threshold, setting an area between the national threshold and the EU threshold wher e specific national rules for selection and 
awarding may apply. Therefore it is  under this national level, if any, that national Contracting 
 
EN 121   EN Authorities may in principle aw ard a contract to a trusted s upplier via direct order without 
prior competition among tenderers. 
To handle direct orders, two scenarios can be envisaged: 
1. Placing an order by sending a "r equest for quotation" to the trusted supplier. The 
latter replies by sending to the Contracti ng Authority a catalogue-based file for the 
Contracting Authority to a pprove or ask for modificatio ns until an agreement is 
reached and an order confirmation is issu ed. The process described configures the 
most typical e-Ordering case (see 2.10) and is fairly commonly supported in current 
ERP environments. 
2. Placing an order to an existing Mark etplace offered by national procurement 
authorities. These are services increasingl y offered in the Member States whereby 
Contracting Authorities navi gate a general catalogue of products and services 
available and chose each item by placing it in to a typical "shopping cart". Interested 
suppliers publish thei r products on the catalogue speci fying price, delivery time, 
areas served, guarantee period, etc. 
3.6 E-Auctions 
The present document handles e-Auctions as an awarding mechanism (see 2.9), although the 
Directives include e-Auction among the new ad ministrative procedures. Basically, the e-
Auction process follows the steps outlined for the open procedure until e-Awarding, at which 
stage an interactive session is opened allowing selected tenderers to submit price reductions (or improvement of individual ch aracteristics of the suppliers th at can be quantitatively be 
expressed) until the most economic (or advantageous) tender is found. 
Source: DG MARKT 
 
EN 122   EN ANNEX IV – Measures under the Action Plan and current status  
Action Plan measure Issues to be addressed State of Play 
Commission to issue 
interpretative document on 
the new rules on electronic public procurement Legal Completed 
- Commission Staff 
Working Document (SEC 959 of 8.7.2005; EN only) 
Commission to make online 
training demonstrators  
available, allowing CAs and 
EOs to familiarise with new e-proc provisions and tools  Technical 
Trust Resistance to change Lack of understanding of 
benefits  
Doubts on feasibility Accessibility Set up a reference model Completed 
- 2005: Applications 
available on IDABC
65 
website66 
- helpdesk services (2005-
2009)  
Commission to provide 
appropriate assistance to 
Member States in 
transposing  the new legal 
provisions  Legal Completed   
- e-Procurement Working 
Group (ePWG) of the 
Advisory Committee for 
Public Contracts, meetings (from 2003) 
- DG MARKT website 
Commission to adopt new 
Standard Forms for 
procurement notices  taking 
account of new procedures + the use of electronic means of communication Standardisation 
Transparency Publicity/dissemination  Cross-border Common understanding Completed 
- Regulation N°1564/2005 
of 7 September 2005 on Standard Forms
67 
                                                 
65 Interoperable Delivery of European eGovern ment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and 
Citizens. A Commission programme that ran between 2005 and 2009, developing recommendations 
and, solutions and providing services helping Euro pean public services to communicate electronically 
66 http://ec.europa.eu/idabc   
67 The standard forms are availa ble online at SIMAP website ( http://simap.europa.eu ) 
 
EN 123   EN Action Plan measure Issues to be addressed State of Play 
Commission to present 
proposals for revision of the 
Common Procurement 
Vocabulary (CPV)  Standardisation 
Cross-border Interoperability Common understanding Completed 
- Regulation N°213/2008 
of 28 November 2007 amending CPV
68 
Commission to present 
Blueprint for a fully 
electronic system  for the 
collection and publication of procurement notices on TED Transparency 
Accessibility Automation 
(Simplification) 
Cross-border Completed  
- Feasibility study  
completed July 2007 ('Mandatory electronic 
transmission of 
procurement notices for 
publication' )
69 
Member States to implement 
fully electronic systems at 
national level  including 
appropriate tools for 
automated collection + 
publishing in TED Transparency 
Accessibility Automation 
(Simplification) On-going  
Member States and 
Commission test, refine and validate results of IDA common functional 
requirements  for e-
Procurement systems  Legal 
Accessibility Cross-border Technical Dissemination of best 
practices 
Common understanding Completed  
- Report on Preliminary 
Functional Requirements  
for e-Procurement 
(03/2005) 
- Report on Preliminary 
Functional Requirements 
for e-Catalogues  
(12/2007)
70 
                                                 
68 The old and new CPV versions are available online at SIMAP website ( http://simap.europa.eu ) 
69 Available at DG MARKT website http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-
procurement_en.htm#feasability  
70 Available at DG MARKT website http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-
procurement_en.htm#feasability  
 
EN 124   EN Action Plan measure Issues to be addressed State of Play 
Member States to review 
whether all operational e-
Procurement schemes have been adjusted to the requirements of the Directives  Legal 
Accessibility Cross-border Technical Common understanding On-going 
Member States introduce 
national accreditation 
schemes to verify 
compliance  of e-tendering 
systems with legal framework  Legal 
Trust Accessibility Policy Cross-border On-going 
Member States and 
Commission consider through a feasibility study whether to introduce a 
European compliance 
verification scheme Legal 
Trust Policy Cross-border Completed  
- Feasibility study on 
Common Compliance Verification mechanisms, completed 07/2007
70 
Commission proposes an  
action under IDABC 
programme to help Member States co-ordinate implementing the use of advanced qualified 
signature to resolve 
interoperability problems   Authentication 
Interoperability Cross-border Completed 
71 
Member States apply,  if 
required by national law, 
interoperable qualified e-
Signatures  Authentication 
Cross-border Interoperability On-going 
                                                 
71 EU Action Plan for interoperable e-Signatures and e-Auth entication has been adopted (2008), EC inter-
service group has been set up 
 
EN 125   EN Action Plan measure Issues to be addressed State of Play 
CEN / ISSS completes gap 
analysis on interoperability  
needs for effective e-
Procurement  Interoperability 
Accessibility Cross-border Completed  
- CEN Workshop 
Agreement CWA 15236:2005
72  
Commission proposes to continue activities on  e-Procurement under the 
IDABC programme  for 
exchange and discussion on interoperability issues and monitoring of Member States' developments  Interoperability 
Accessibility Cross-border Policy Dissemination of best 
practices Completed  
Commission and Member 
States promote 
standardisation activities  at 
European level and liaise with international standardisation bodies Standardisation 
Interoperability Cross-border Accessibility Policy Dissemination of best 
practices On-going
73  
Member States to prepare 
national plans  for 
introducing e-Procurement setting measurable performance targets, taking account of specific national needs Policy 
Security Trust Inclusion Monitoring Dissemination of best 
practices Partially completed 
                                                 
72 Analysis of standardization requirements and standardization gaps for e-Procurement in Europe , 
available at CEN website ftp://ftp.cenorm.be/PUBLIC/CWAs/e -Europe/eProc/cwa15236-00-2005-
Feb.pdf   
73 COM has successfully promoted standardisation over  the last years. Various standardisation activities 
have been completed by CEN and OASIS on XML au tomated messaging. Development of standards is 
still on-going. 
 
EN 126   EN Action Plan measure Issues to be addressed State of Play 
Member States to encourage 
preparation of similar plans 
by individual national 
buyers  and coordinate + 
monitor their implementation Policy 
Security Trust Inclusion Dissemination of best 
practices 
Monitoring Partially Completed 
Commission to continue 
monitoring work on e-invoices by CEN/ISSS and propose continuation of XML activities unde rtaken in 2003-
2004 on e-invoices and e-
Ordering  under IDABC Standardisation 
Interoperability Cross-border On-going
74 
Member States to set up 
efficient electronic systems 
for the collection and 
processing of statistical 
procurement data  Dissemination of best 
practices 
Monitoring Partially completed 
- Study on the automation 
of statistical data collection 
in 11 Member States (April 2007) 
- Appropriate measures 
taken by some Member States 
Commission to consider proposing services for the 
electronic supply of 
business information and 
certificates in public 
procurement for implementation under the IDABC programme Accessibility 
Standardisation Cross-border Automation 
(Simplification) 
Re-usability Completed 
- Feasibility study on the 
electronic provision of 
certificates & attestations 
most frequently required in PP, completed (12/2008).
75 
                                                 
74 Activities monitored on various standardisation activities by CEN and OASIS on XML automated 
messaging for e-Ordering & e-Invoicing, and various operational initiatives by DIGIT, ENTR 
75 Available at DG MARKT website http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-
procurement_en.htm#feasability  
 
EN 127   EN Action Plan measure Issues to be addressed State of Play 
Member States and 
Commission agree on a 
common set of frequently 
required electronic 
certificates  for use in e-proc Accessibility 
Standardisation Cross-border Re-usability On-going 
- e-CERTIS  Feasibility 
study ('e-Certificates II') on creation of an online database on certificates & attestations (funded by IDABC) 
Commission proposes launching study on e-
catalogues  (in DPS + 
electronic framework agreements) using work by CEN/ISSS under the IDABC programme Standardisation 
Technical Inclusion Completed  
- Feasibility study on e-
Catalogues (November 2007)
76 
Public Procurement Network to organise benchmarking 
on transparency, auditing + 
traceability  of e-proc 
systems Transparency 
Legal 
Trust 
Common understanding Delayed 
Public Procurement Network 
to organise workshops to promote exchanges on 
tender document 
standardisation  Accessibility 
Standardisation Automation 
(Simplification) Delayed 
Member States to launch and 
support specific awareness 
campaigns +training  for 
SMEs at national + regional 
level Inclusion 
Policy On-going  
Commission to pursue 
negotiations on the review of 
the Government 
Procurement Agreement (GPA) International cross-border 
Policy Legal On-going
77 
                                                 
76 Available at DG MARKT website http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-
procurement_en.htm#feasability  
77 COM has taken action according to the Action Plan's objectives, but the negotiation is still on-going. 
 
EN 128   EN Action Plan measure Issues to be addressed State of Play 
Commission to take 
initiatives in the GPA to 
progress towards utilisation 
of a single common 
nomenclature  for the 
classification of procurement goods and services  International cross-border 
Standardisation Policy International common 
understanding 
 On-going
78 
Commission to promote the 
activities of and liaise with 
international 
standardisation bodies  & 
fora to avoid emergence of interoperability barriers at international level  International cross-border 
Policy Standardisation Interoperability On-going 
Commission to  cooperate 
with Multilateral 
Development Banks  
(MDBs) network in view of 
co-ordinating technical assist. to 3
rd countries, supporting 
re-organising and computerising their PP regimes  International cross-border 
Policy Inclusion On-going 
Commission to consider any 
adjustments necessary + 
feasibility of e-Procurement in context of EU external aid 
instruments Policy 
Transparency On-going 
Source: DG MARKT 
                                                 
78 COM has taken action according to the Action Plan's objectives, but the negotiation is still on-going. 
 
EN 129   EN ANNEX V– Table of public procurement legislation  
NB: This table mentions the thresholds as  foreseen in the initial te xt of the Directives mentio ned. It does not include updates  for any subsequent 
adaptation of the thresholds' value over time. 
Directive Who Coverage and threshold Comments 
71/305/EEC Public sector Works contracts, equal to and above € 1 million Works concessi ons not covered, transport, water and en ergy 
sectors excluded 
77/62/EEC Public sector Supplies contracts, equal to and above  € 200,000 Transport, water, en ergy and telecommunications sector s 
excluded 
80/767/EEC Public sector, central 
state authorities Supplies contracts, equal to and above € 140,000 Amending Directive 77/ 62/EEC, mainly because of the 1979 
GATT Agreement on Government procurement. Transport, 
water, energy and telecommunications sectors excluded 
88/295/EEC Public sector Supplies contr acts, equal to and above € 130,000 (for 
central state authorities), otherwise equal to and above 200,000 €  Amending Directive 77/62/EEC, i.a. because of the 1986 
GATT Agreement on Government procurement. Transport, water, energy and telecommunications sectors excluded 
89/440/EEC  Public sector Works contract s, works concessions contracts, works 
contracts awarded by concessionaires, subsidised works contracts, equal to and above € 5,000,000 Amending Directive 71/305/EEC. Definition of contracting 
authorities broadened (bodies governed by public law), definition of works contracts broadened (execution and design … or the execution by whatever means …). Transport, water and energy sectors excluded 
90/531/EEC Utilities (water, 
energy, transport and 
telecommunications sectors) Works contracts, equal to and above € 5,000,000  
Supplies contracts € 400,000 – 600,000 (central State 
authorities – others) Works concessions contracts not covered, very broad 
definition of special or exclusive rights 
92/50/EEC Public sector Service contracts, subsidised contracts, design contests 
equal to and above € 200,000 Two tier system, service concessions excluded. Water, energy, 
transport and telecommunications sectors excluded. 
93/36/EEC Public sector Supplies contracts, equal to and above € 130,000 – 
200,000 (central State authorities - others) Codified Directive 77/62/EEC a nd its subsequent amendments 
and introduced substantial changes. Definition of contracting authority broadened (body governed by public law). Water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors excluded. 
93/37/EEC Public sector Works contracts,  works concessions contracts, works 
contracts awarded by concessionaires, subsidised works 
contracts, equal to and above € 5,000,000 Purely a codification of Directive 71/305/EEC and its 
subsequent amendments (see remarks to 89/440/EC). Water, 
energy, transport and telecommunications sectors excluded. 
 
EN 130   EN Directive Who Coverage and threshold Comments 
93/38/EEC Utilities (water, 
energy, transport and 
telecommunications 
sectors) Works contracts, supplies contracts services contracts¸ 
design contests, equal to and above € 5,000,000 for 
works, equal to and above € 400,000 – 600,000 for 
supplies and services (central State authorities – others) Codification of Directive 90/531/EEC with the new provisions 
concerning service contracts. Two tier system for services. 
Works and service concessions contracts not covered, very 
broad definition of special or exclusive rights 
97/52/EC &  98/4/EC Public sector and 
Utilities Changes to previous thresholds. equal to and above 
€5,000,000 / SDR 5,000,000 for works, SDR 130,000 - € 600,000 for supplies and services contracts Directive 97/52/EC amended Directives 92/50/EEC, 
93/36/EEC and 93/37/EEC, while Directive 98/4/EC amended Directive 93/38/EEC. Mainly because of the 1994 WTO Agreement on Government procurement. 
2004/17/EC Utilities (Water, 
energy, transport and postal sectors) Works, equal to and above € 6,242,000  
Supplies and services contracts, design contests, equal to and above € 499,000. 
(Currently: equal to and above € 4,845,000 for works 
contracts; equal to and above € 387,000 for supplies, services) and design contests. Replaced Directive 93/38/EEC and its subsequent 
modifications. Two tier system for services. Works and service concessions contracts not covered. Narrower but 
refocused definition of special and exclusive rights. Postal 
sector added and telecommunications sector excluded. Provisions on e-Procurement included. 
2004/18/EC Public sector Works, works concessions contracts, works contracts 
awarded by concessionaires, subsidised works equal to and above € 6,242,000  Supplies and services contracts, subsidised service 
contracts, design contests, e qual to and above € 162,000 
– 249,000 (currently: equal to and above € 4,845,000 for works, works concessions contracts, works contracts awarded by concessionaires, subsidised works. equal to and above € 125,000 – 193,000 for supplies and services 
contracts, subsidised service contracts, design contests) Replaced Directives 92/50/EEC , 93/36/EEC and 93/37/EEC 
and subsequent modifications. Two tier system for services. Service concessions contracts not covered. Water, energy, transport, telecommunications and postal sectors excluded; 
Provisions on e-Procurement included. 
Source: DG MARKT 
 
EN 131   EN ANNEX VI - Intervention logics  
First objective - Ensure a well functioning Inte rnal Market in electronic public procurement  Source: Siemens-time.lex study 
Impacts  Aim(s) of the Action Plan for this 
objective 
(proposed measure)  Expected results linked to this 
objective 
(expected reaction to the action)  Direct 
(desired effect) Indirect 
(possible other effects) Overall 
impacts 
(overall objective of 
the AP)  
Implement the legal framework correctly and on time 
Commission must issue explanatory document on the new rules on 
electronic public procurement 
Commission must issue online training demonstrators to familiarize 
MS with the new e-proc provisions and tools 
Commission must provide assistance to MS in transposing the new 
legal provisions 
Complete legal framework by appropriate basic tools  
Commission adopts new Standard Forms for procurement notices   
Commission coordinates the revision of the CPV 
 
Commission provides a blueprint for a fully electronic system for 
the collection and publication of procurement notices on TED 
 
Implementation by MS of electronic systems at national level incl. tools for automated collection + publishing in TED  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
Context: 
• General goal: public proc must be non-discriminatory, generally available 
and interoperable and by no means restrict economic operators’ access 
to the tendering procedure  
• Linked legislation includes specifically the eSignatures Directive (provides a 
basic working tool) and VAT Directive 2006/112/EC (including 
eInvoicing as described in articles 232 and following) 
• Overall policy context: i2010 objectives Member State Action: 
 
• They must implement the legal framework, including 
notably the new forms and the CPV 
• eProcurement uptake is encouraged and expected but not 
mandated by the Directives (or the Action Plan) External factors: 
•The Services Directive could have a strong impact, especially through the 
eSignatures work (CROBIES), and due to eDocuments concerns (IMI 
system)  
•Large scale pilots provide key building blocks; notably PEPPOL, but also STORK 
and SPOCS 
•Greater call for simplification, also from a political perspective, see e.g. Stoiber 
Group and ongoing review of eInvoicing rules  
 Implementation  is facilitated and 
speeded  up (deadline: 31/1/2006) 
Error free implementation; no 
misunderstandings about scope of 
new provisions 
Consistent and transparent public procurement 
Single, common EU infrastructure for 
eNotices  
National infrastructure for eNotices compatible with EU system Accelerated uptake of eProc 
& of new tools 
Accelerated uptake of 
electronic notices No legal barriers for 
eProcurement 
Common EU understanding 
of eProc 
Greater PP participation  Greater legal certainty 
Administrative simplification  
Effort/cost of participation 
drops for tenderers Improve eGov interoperability and sophistication in general 
Reduced risk of market 
fragmentation 
Private and public proc. 
can share best practices
 
Technical know-how may 
favour participants with 
more sophisticated 
technical infrastructures 
Automation may eliminate 
now unnecessary jobs; this 
may be offset by new jobs 
in innovative services  
Increased eProc/eGov 
investment (incl. private 
sector) Improve cross 
border access to 
public procurement 
markets, thus 
supporting the 
Internal Market 
 
Reduce costs for the public sector by 
improving efficiency 
and stimulating 
competition in the 
Internal Market 
 
 
EN 132   EN First objective - Ensure a well func tioning Internal Market in electro nic public procurement (continuation)  Source: Siemens-time.lex study 
Impacts  Overall impacts 
(overall objective of the AP)  Aim(s) of the Action Plan for this 
objective 
(proposed action/measure)  Expected results linked to this objective 
(expected reaction to the action)  
Direct 
(desired effect) Indirect 
(possible other effects) 
Remove/prevent barriers in e- procurement procedures 
MS and Commission issue functional requirements for 
eProcurement systems 
MS review whether e-proc systems have adjusted to Directives 
MS introduce national accreditation schemes to verify legal 
compliance 
MS and Commission perform a feasibility study for a European 
compliance verification scheme 
Commission proposes initiatives to assist the MS to resolve 
interoperability problems for e-signatures 
MS apply interoperable qualified electronic signatures  
Detect and address interoperability problems over time 
Commission and MS promote standardisation activities at 
European level and liaise with international standardisation bodies 
CEN/ISS issues gap analysis on interoperability needs  
Commission proposes to continue activities on e- procurement 
under the IDABC programme on interoperability issues   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
Context: 
• General goal: public proc must be non-discriminatory, generally available and 
interoperable and by no means restrict economic operators’ access to 
the tendering procedure  
• Linked legislation includes specifically the eSignatures Directive (provides a 
basic working tool) and Services Directive (addresses similar issues) 
• Overall policy context: i2010 objectives Member State Action: 
 
• MS are expected (but not required) to implement compliant eProcurement 
infrastructure. Use of these systems was expected, as was the 
adoption of qualified signatures, but not required . 
 External factors: 
•The Services Directive could have a strong impact, especially through the 
eSignatures work (CROBIES), and due to eDocuments concerns (IMI 
system)  
•Large scale pilots provide key building blocks; 
•Greater call for simplification, also from a political perspective, see e.g. Stoiber 
Group and ongoing review of eInvoicing rules  
 Better understanding of interoperability issues 
and greater interoperability between Member 
States 
 
Increased standardisation  Usage of qualified electronic signatures is 
facilitated, including at the cross border 
levelMS’ eProcurement systems comply 
with the legal framework  MS have eProcurement systems that support 
the new tools based on a common 
understanding of the European framework  Increased confidence in 
eProcurement 
Increased transparency  
Greater participation and 
competition (especially cross border) reduces costs for public sector Effort/cost of participation drops for all participants 
(public and private) 
Greater security and 
reliability of procurements
 
No legal and few technical 
barriers for cross border 
eProc & use of new tools 
All new tools used, correctly  Improve eGov 
interoperability and sophistication, including for eCertificates / eSignatures 
Standardisation will likely 
trickle through to private 
section initiatives (including private procurement, 
eInvoicing, e-signatures)
 
Technical know-how may 
favour participants with more sophisticated technical infrastructures 
Automation may eliminate 
now unnecessary jobs; this may be offset by new jobs in innovative services  Standardisation will improve return on investment for eProc  Security may increase costs of compliance Improve cross border access to public procurement markets, thus supporting the Internal 
Market 
 
Reduce costs for the public sector by improving efficiency and stimulating competition in the Internal 
Market
 
 
 
EN 133   EN Second objective - Improve procurement ef ficiency, governance and competitiveness  Source: Siemens-time.lex study 
Impacts  Overall impacts 
(overall objective of the AP)  Aim(s) of the Action Plan for this 
objective 
(proposed measure)  Expected results linked to this objective 
(expected reaction to the action)  
Direct 
(desired effect) Indirect 
(possible other effects) 
Increase procurement efficiency and improve governance 
MS will adopt national action plans for introducing eProcurement, 
including measurable performance targets, and will encourage 
preparation of similar plans by individual national buyers  
Commission will continue monitoring work on eInvoices by 
CEN/ISSS and XML activities on eInvoices and eOrdering 
MS will set up efficient electronic systems for the collection and 
processing of statistical procurement data (including TED data) 
Increase competitiveness of EU public procurement markets  
Commission will consider to propose services for the electronic supply of business information / certificates in public procurement; 
MS and Commission will agree on a common set of frequently 
required eCertificates; and the Public Procurement Network 
organizes a benchmark exercise on transparency, 
auditing+traceability of e-proc systems 
Commission studies eCatalogues (in DPS and framework 
agreements) 
Public Procurement Network organises workshops to promote tender document standardisation 
MS launch and support specific awareness campaigns +training 
programmes for SMEs  
  
  
Increased centralization Improved ROI Standardised certificate practices may improve efficiency of the public 
sector outside of public procurement  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Context: 
• General goal: public proc must be non-discriminatory, generally available and 
interoperable  
• Linked legislation includes specifically the eSignatures Directive, the VAT 
Directive (with respect to eInvoicing) and Services Directive Member State Action: 
• MS are expected to adopt action plans and collect statistical data, leading 
to the professionalization of public proc policy. 
• Administrative practices (especially with respect to eCertificates) must be 
modernized and streamlined External factors: 
•The Services Directive( eDocuments concerns (IMI system))  
•Large scale pilots provide key building blocks 
•Greater call for simplification, also from a political perspective, see e.g. Stoiber 
Group and ongoing review of eInvoicing rules  
 National action plans are established
Individual buyers adopt similar strategies 
Statistical data on eProc is collected  
More efficient/consistent national ePro cpolicy
Adoption of eInvoicing and eOrdering in 
transactions with the public sector 
More standardised eCertificate/eDocument 
practices, leading to easier exchange/use of 
common eCertificates/eDocuments  
Increased use/uptake of eCatalogues, incl. in 
DPS and framework agreements  
Greater participation in eProcurements, including cross border, specifically for SMEs Increased confidence in 
eProcurement SMEs can realize more of 
the gains of PP Improved national 
coordination of PP / eProcurement strategies Goal-oriented policy making is promoted through quantifiable targets; weaknesses can 
be seen and addressed
 
Increased use of eProc 
(incl. cross border) reduces costs of procurements Effort/cost of participation 
drops for tenderers Improve eGov 
interoperability and sophistication, including for 
eCertificates / eSignatures 
More centralization and improved return on 
investment 
More effective investment 
in eGov infrastructure 
Standardisation work may 
trickle through to private 
initiatives (including private 
procurement, eInvoicing); eInvoicing will be taken up 
more outside of PP Goal-oriented policies improve accountability 
SME awareness of business opportunities may increase Improve cross border 
access to public procurement markets, thus supporting the Internal Market  
Reduce costs for the public 
sector by improving efficiency and stimulating competition in the Internal Market 
 
Advance European 
competitiveness through the 
uptake of e-business tools  
 
 
EN 134   EN Third objective - Work towards an international framework fo r electronic public procurement  Source: Siemens-time.lex study 
Impacts  Overall impacts 
(overall objective of the AP)  Aim(s) of the Action Plan for this 
objective 
(proposed measure)  Expected results linked to this objective 
(expected reaction to the measure)  
Direct 
(desired effect) Indirect 
(possible other effects) 
Commission will conduct negotiations on the review of the  
Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) 
Initiatives in the GPA to progress towards utilisation of a single common nomenclature for the classification of goods and services 
Commission  liaises with international standardisation bodies and 
fora to avoid international technological interoperability barriers  
Commission cooperates with the Multilateral Development Banks 
(MDBs) network in view of co-ordinating technical assistance to 3rd 
countries with respect to their PP regimes 
Commission will consider any necessary adjustments + feasibility of eProcurement in the context of EU external aid instruments 
Commission will monitor overall progress; by end of 2007, review the situation and report on the results achieved.   
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
Context: 
• General goal: public proc must be non-discriminatory, generally 
available and interoperable and by no means restrict economic 
operators’ access to the tendering procedure  
• Linked legislation includes specifically the eSignatures Directive , 
the VAT Directive (with respect to eInvoicing) and Services 
Directive (addresses similar issues) 
• Overall policy context: i2010 objectives Member State Action: 
 
• MS are expected to support European policy actions in this field; 
however, the initiative appears to lie mainly at the European 
level 
 External factors: 
• The Services Directive could have a strong impact, especially 
through the eSignatures work (CROBIES), and due to 
eDocuments concerns (IMI system)  
• Large scale pilots provide key building blocks; notably PEPPOL, 
but also STORK and SPOCS  
• Greater call for simplification, also from a political perspective, 
see e.g. Stoiber Group and ongoing review of eInvoicing rules   
 Legal and technical barriers for international eProcurement are reduced or eliminated 
Dissemination of good practices at the 
international level 
 
Compliance of EU rules with international obligations
Improved governance of EU eProcurement policy  eProcurement is facilitated 
at an international level 
Export of European 
experience, if usable 
outside of Europe  
Effective eProcurement 
policy optimizes return on investment 
Competition improves 
further, thus costs of procurements decrease for 
the public sector
 Experiences from eProc 
initiatives will trickle through 
to other eGov domains  
An international approach 
can stimulate ICT 
investments in general  
Technical and legal 
requirements may favour 
technologically advanced countries over less 
developed nations Improve cross border 
access to public 
procurement markets, thus supporting the Internal Market  Reduce costs for the public 
sector by improving 
efficiency and stimulating competition in the Internal Market 
 
Advance European 
competitiveness through the 
uptake of e-business tools  
Source: Siemens-time.lex  
 
EN 135   EN ANNEX VII – List of portals reviewed  
Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Austria 
Federal Procurement Agency http://www.bbg.gv.at/  CPB EN Low High 
Austrian Register of Te nderers/Contractors – ANKÖ http://www.ankoe.at/  Portal - - Medium 
Pep-online http://www.pep-online.at/  Portal - - Medium79 
Austrian Federal Railways and ASFINAG (Highway Company) http://www.ava-online.at/  Portal - - Medium 
Vemap procurement platform – www.vemap.com . Implemented i.a. by:  
– Procurement Portal of St Pölten city http://stpoelten.vemap.com/  
– Federal State of Lower Austria (Land Niederösterreich) http://noe.vemap.com/  
– Holding of companies of the city  of Vienna (Wiener Stadtwerke) http://wstw.vemap.com/  Platform - - Medium 
Belgium 
Belgian federal public procurement portal http://www.publicprocurement.be/  Portal EN High Low 
                                                 
79 Requires payment to receive tender information  
 
EN 136   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Federal Procurement Central” (Centrale de Marc hés de l'Administration fédérale - Federale 
Opdrachtencentrale) http://www.publicprocurement.be/portal/p age/portal/pubproc/ambtenaren/for%20-
%20federale%20opdrachtencentrale   CPB EN High Low 
Walloon public procurement portal http://marchespublics.wallonie.be/  Portal - - High 
Flemish public procurement portal http://www.kanoo.be/  Portal - - Low 
Bulgaria 
Public Procurement Portal http://www.aop.bg  Portal EN High High 
Electronic market for small public procurement http://smallsrv.minfin.bg/  Portal - - Medium 
Croatia 
Portal of Public Procurement http://www.javnanabava.hr/  Portal EN Medium - 
Electronic procurement search ads http://ponuda-jn.nn.hr/  Portal - - Low80 
Cyprus 
Cyprus e-Procurement System (CyePS) http://www.e-Procurement.gov.cy  
 Portal EN High Medium 
                                                 
80 Requires payment to receive tender information 
 
EN 137   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Czech Republic 
Official website of public contracts http://www.isvzus.cz/  Portal EN High High 
Public procurement of the Mini stry for Regional Development http://ezak.mmr.cz/  Portal - - High 
Public Procurement and Concessions Portal http://www.portal-vz.cz/  Portal EN High -81 
Czech Post Auction http://www.centralniadresa.cz/cadr  Platform82 EN High High 
Denmark 
Public procurement portal – SKI www.ski.dk  CPB EN Low Medium 
Public procurement portal – DOIP – DOIPEI www.doip.dk  Portal EN, SV, NO Medium Medium 
SKI electronic catalogue www.netindkob.dk  Portal - - Medium 
SKI electronic catalogue www.netkatalog.dk  Portal - - Medium 
Mercell www.mercell.dk  Platform - - Medium 
Udbudsavisen.dk www.udbudsavisen.dk  Portal - - Medium 
                                                 
81 Forward to http://ezak.mmr.cz/  
82 Used for any auction, including private auctions (non-public procurement) 
 
EN 138   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Amgros www.amgros.dk  Portal EN Low High 
Estonia 
State Procurement Register https://riigihanked.riik.ee/  Portal EN Low Medium 
Mercell http://www.mercell.ee/  Platform - - Medium 
Finland 
HILMA http://www.hankintailmoitukset.fi/  Portal - - High 
Hansel Ltd http://www.hansel.fi/  CPB EN Low Medium 
KL-Kuntahankinnat Oy http://www.kuntahankinnat.fi  CPB EN, (SV83) Low High 
France 
Place de marché interministérielle www.marches-publics.gouv.fr  CPB EN, ES High Medium 
Bulletin officiel des annonces de machés public www.boamp.fr  Portal - - Medium 
Les Chambres de Commerce et d'Industrie www.marches.cci.fr  Portal - - Medium 
                                                 
83 Swedish is also an official language in Finland; therefore it should not be considered an additional language for the purposes  of this table.  
 
EN 139   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
e-Procurement sites based on the LT-MPE-platform http://www.atexo.com/LT-MPE.htm ; some 
examples include : 
– Marchés publics e-Bourgogne marches.e-bourgogne.fr  
– E-megalis set up by the region of Brittany. http://www.e-megalisbretagne.org/   
– Marchés publics Ile-de-France e-marchespublics.iledefrance.fr  
– Marchés publics de Nantes Métropole marchespublics.nantesmetropole.fr  
– Marchés publics de La Région Alsace http://marchespublics.region-alsace.eu   
– Marchés publics Pas-de-Calais www2.local-trust.com/cg62  Platform - - Medium 
e-Procurement sites based on the SIS-ePP-platform http://www.sis-france.com/5.aspx ; some 
examples include :  
– Conseil Régional Midi-Pyrénées https://marchespublics.midipyrenees.fr/marchespublics2/  
– Marchés publics d'OPAC VOSGES http://marchespublics.opacvosges.fr/asp-opac88/index.jsp   
– Marchés publics La Carène http://www.carene-epp.cce.bull.fr/CARENE/index.jsp   Platform - - Medium 
Réseau des acheteurs hospitaliers d’Ile de France www.resah-idf.com  Portal - - Medium 
e-Marchespublics.com www.e-marchespublics.com  Portal - - Medium 
 
EN 140   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Mairie de Lyon www.marches.lyon.fr  Portal - - Medium 
Marchés publics du Grand Ouest www.ouestmarches.com  Portal - - High 
Germany 
Vergabeplattform des Bundes www.evergabe-online.de  Portal - - Low 
Beschaffungsamtes des Bundesministeriums des Innern www.bescha.bund.de  CPB - - High 
Kaufhaus des Bundes www.kdb.bund.de  Portal - - High 
Land Nordrhein-Westfalen www.evergabe.nrw.de/VMPCenter  Portal - - Medium 
Mercell www.mercell.de  Platform - - Low 
Sites based on the Arriba platform ( http://www.rib-software.com/de/loesungen/e-business-e-
vergabe/e-vergabe.html ); including www.vergabe.stuttgart.de   Platform - - Low 
 
EN 141   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Sites based on the Administrati on Intelligence AG platform ( http://www.ai-ag.de/ ); including:  
– www.vergabe.stadt-frankfurt.de  
– Deutsche Rentenversicherung www.deutsche-rentenversicherung-bund.de  
– www.vergabe.bremen.de   
– www.vergabe.hessen.de   
– Landschaftsverband Rheinland http://www.lvr.de/   Platform - - Low 
Greece 
None identified     
Hungary 
Public Procurement Council (Központi Szolgáltatási F őigazgatóság) http://www.kozbeszerzes.hu/  CPB EN Medium High 
KSZF http://kszfweb.econet.hu/  Portal - - Medium 
Electool Hungary Ltd http://www.e-eljaras.hu   Platform - - High 
Iceland 
State Trading Center www.rikiskaup.is/utbod  Portal EN Low High 
 
EN 142   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Ireland 
eTenders Public Procurement www.etenders.gov.ie  Portal - - High 
National Public Procurement Policy Unit http://www.etenders.gov.ie/a boutus/AboutUs_NPPPU.aspx   CPB - - High 
Italy 
Acquisti in Rete http://www.acquistinretepa.it/  Portal - - Medium 
CONSIP http://www.consip.it/on-line/Home.html   CPB - - High 
Friuli Venezia Giulia http://www.acquisti.regione.fvg.it/  Portal - - High 
Piedmont http://portal.sistemapiemonte.it  Portal - - High 
Municipality of Florence Marketplace http://www.comune.fi.it  CPB - - Medium 
Region Marche http://www.emarche.it/  CPB - - Medium 
Autonomous Province Bolzano http://www.provincia.bz.it/  CPB (DE84) High85 Medium 
IntercentER http://www.regione.emilia-romagna.it/  CPB - - Medium 
                                                 
84 Some sections of the website are also available in English, but not those pertaining to e-Procurement opportunities. In the au tonomous province of Bolzano, German and 
Italian are both offi cial languages.  
85 Including also the call for tenders' text 
 
EN 143   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Umbria region http://88.61.35.136/regione/interfaccia/  Portal - - High 
EmPULIA - Shopping Center For Public Service http://www.empulia.it/  Portal - - Medium 
Campania region www.sitar-campania.it  Portal - - High 
Latvia 
Procurement Monitoring Office (IUB) www.iub.gov.lv  CPB - - High 
Latvian public procurement www.eiepirkumi.gov.lv  Portal - - High 
Mercell www.mercell.lv  Platform - - Low 
Lithuania 
Central Public Procurement Information System pirkimai.eviesiejipirkimai.lt  Portal EN Low Medium 
Central Public Procurement Portal www.cvpp.lt  Portal - - Medium 
Central project management agency http://www.cpva.lt/  and www.cpo.lt  CPB EN Low Medium 
Mercell http://www.mercell.lt/  Platform - - Low 
Luxembourg 
Public e-Procurement portal http://www.marches.public.lu/  Portal - - High 
 
EN 144   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Malta 
Department of Contracts http://www.contracts.gov.mt/  CPB - - Medium 
Government e-Procurement System http://www.e-Procurement.gov.mt/  Portal - - Medium 
Department of Information http://www.doi.gov.mt/  Portal - - High 
Enemalta http://www.emcservices.gov.mt/  Portal - - High 
Netherlands 
TenderNed http://www.tenderned.nl/  Portal - - - 
Aanbestedings kalender http://www.aanbestedingskalender.nl/  Portal - - High 
Aanbestedingenonline.nl http://www.aanbestedingenonline.nl  Portal - - Medium 
Ik ben Brig id http://www.brigid.nl  Portal - - Medium 
Tenders for architects and design contest http://www.ontwerpwedstrijden.nl  Portal - - High 
City of Nijmegen http://www.nijmegenonderneemtmeer.nl  Portal - - Medium 
ProRail (public transportation) http://www.aanbesteden.prorail.nl  
 Portal - - Medium 
 
EN 145   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Norway 
Database for public procurement notifications Doffin.no (Software as a service provided by 
Millstream Ltd) www.doffin.no  Portal EN High High 
Electronic Public Procurement Portal Ehandel.no www.ehandel.no  Portal EN High High 
Ehandel.no eTendering solution (Software as a service solution provided by two suppliers: 
Mercell and VismaUnique www.ehandel.no/kgv  Portal EN Medium High 
Ehandel.no e-Ordering solution (Softwar e as a service solution provided by IBX) 
www.ehandel.no/ehp  Portal EN Medium High 
Mercell www.mercell.no  Platform - - Low 
Poland 
Public Procurement Office – Electronic Auctions Platform https://aukcje.uzp.gov.pl/  or 
https://licytacje.uzp.gov.pl   Portal - - Medium 
e-Przetarg.pl http://www.e-przetarg.pl/  Platform - - Medium 
Market Planet http://www.marketplanet.pl/  Platform EN Medium Medium 
Polish Procurement Platform PWPW http://www.ppp.pwpw.pl/  Platform EN High Low 
XTRADE http://www.xtrade.com.pl/  Platform - - Medium 
 
EN 146   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
eTender - Electronic Procurements http://www.etender.pl/  Platform EN Medium Medium 
Portugal 
ANCP – Agência Nacional de Compras Públicas, E.P.E. www.ancp.gov.pt  and 
http://ancpconcursos.ancp.gov.pt/  CPB - - Medium 
Portal Base www.base.gov.pt   Portal - - High 
VortalGOV http://www.vortal-info.biz/  Platform EN, ES Medium High 
bizGov http://www.bizgov.pt/  Platform EN High High 
Infosistemas DL - Compras AP https://www.compraspt.com/compraspt/  Portal - - Medium 
Plataforma de Compras Públicas https://www.compraspublicas.com/  Portal - - Low 
anoGov http://www.anogov.com/plataforma/  Portal - - Medium 
acinGov http://www.acingov.pt  Portal - - Low 
Romania 
Sistemul Electronic de Achizitii Publice (SEAP) www.e-licitatie.ro  Platform EN High High 
National Authority for Regulating and Mon itoring Public Procurement (NARMPP) 
http://www.cnmsi.ro/   CPB - - High 
 
EN 147   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Slovakia 
Electronic procurement (EVO) www.evo.gov.sk  Portal - - High 
National Journal of Public Procurement www.e-vestnik.sk  Portal - - High 
Office of Public Procurement www.uvo.gov.sk/zovo  CPB - - Low 
Slovenia 
Ministry of Finances www.enarocanje.si  Portal - - High 
Spain 
Plataforma de contratación del estado http://contrataciondelestado.es /  Portal - - Medium 
Conecta-patrimonio http://catalogopatrimonio.meh.es  
Portal (Catalan, 
Basque, Galician)
86 
 EN, FR Low High 
                                                 
86 Recognised regional official languages  
 
EN 148   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
Red.es http://www.red.es/index.action   
CPB (Catalan, 
Basque, Galician)
 87 
EN Low Low 
Electronic Contracting Platform of Public Admini stration for some local authorities in the region 
of Catalonia http://www.pecap.org/  Portal (Catalan) 88 
EN Low Low 
Spanish Agency of Medicines and Health Products 
http://www.agemed.es/actividad/licitacionPublica/  Portal (Catalan, 
Basque, Galician)
 89 
EN, FR Low High 
Spanish Agency for Food Security and Nutrition 
http://www.aesan.msc.es/AESAN/web/licitaci ones_publicas/licitaciones_publicas.shtml/  Portal - - High 
National Institute of Health Management http://www.ingesa.msc.es/ciudadanos/licitaciones/index.jsp/  
Portal (Catalan, 
Basque, Galician)
 90 
EN, FR Low Medium91 
                                                 
87 Recognised regional official languages  
88 Recognised regional official languages  
89 Recognised regional official languages   
90 Recognised regional official languages  
91 Restricted to people with a NIF/CIF code  
 
EN 149   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
National Drug Plan http://www.pnsd.msc.es/Categoria4/licitaciones/licitacion.htm/  
Portal (Catalan, 
Basque, Galician)
 92 
EN, FR Low High 
Sweden 
Avropa http://www.avropa.se/  Portal EN Low Medium 
Opic http://www.opic.se/  Portal EN, LT Medium Medium 
Mercell http://www.mercell.se/  Platform - - Low 
Eniro procurement http://www.eniroupphandling.se/  Portal - - Low 
Liechtenstein 
None identified     
Turkey 
Public Procurement Platform Citizen Transactions http://vatandas.ihale.gov.tr/  Portal - - Medium 
United Kingdom93 
                                                 
92 Recognised regional official languages  
93 Only a subset of the large lis t of the UK portals and platforms  
 
EN 150   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
The public sector’s national procurement portal http://www.buyingsolutions.gov.uk/  CPB - - High 
Sites based on the BraveSolution platform ( https://www.bravosolution.com/ ), such as: 
National Policing Improvement Agency https://npia.bravosolution.co.uk/  
Department for Communities and Local Government https://communities.bravosolution.co.uk/  
Ministry of Justice https://justice.bravosolution.co.uk/  Platform - - High 
IDeA: Improvement and Development Agency for local government 
http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/co re/page.do?pageId=1002  Portal - - High 
The Scottish Government e-Procurement http://www.e-Procurementscotland.com/  Portal - - High 
Wales e-Procurement http://www.xchangewales.co.uk/  Portal - - High 
Home Office eSourcing Portal https://sourcing.homeoffice.gov.uk/  
Portal ES, PT, FR, 
DE, IT, JA, ZH, RU Low Medium 
Delta Electronic Tendering Service ( https://www.delta-ets.com/ ) used by: Department for Culture 
procurement portal http://dcms.g2b.info/  Platform - - Medium 
Department of Health Procurement & Proposals http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Procurementandproposals  Portal - - High 
Ministry of Defence http://www.contracts.mod.uk/  Portal - - Medium 
 
EN 151   EN Country and website Type Additional 
languages Coverage 
for add. 
languages Access 
EGS e-Procurement http://www.egsgroup.com/  Platform - - High 
Source: Siemens-time.lex
 
EN 152   EN ANNEX VIII – Costs for e-Procurement  
COSTS for CAs BENEFITS for CAs ECONOMIC OPERATORS 
Country  Platform name  
Implementation costs Annual 
costs Savings Estimate benefits Other statistics  
Fee (EO) Benefits 
(EO) 
AT ANKÖ 
Vergabeportal      Enterprises pay 
an annual fee 
for the use of 
the platform   
AT e-shop (BBG )  €1-49,000 Approximately 
€63/order ; €3.5 
Million/year   A growth rate of volume and number of 
orders of about 25 percent per year   
AT FPC €1-5 million  €500-
999,000 2008: 
procurements of € 
830 Million and 
savings of 17.64 
% (178 Million 
Euro).     
BE e-Procurement 
Flanders 
(Kanoo.be) €1-5 million €49-299,000     A low fee - 
contributing to 
the 
maintenance  
 
EN 153   EN COSTS for CAs BENEFITS for CAs ECONOMIC OPERATORS 
Country  Platform name  
Implementation costs Annual 
costs Savings Estimate benefits Other statistics  
Fee (EO) Benefits 
(EO) 
CY Cyprus e-
Procurement 
System  €1-5 million €300-
499,000   60 to 70% savings 
associated with e-
Notification; 80% for e-
Access to e-Submission, 
40 to 70% for e-
Awarding; over 90% for 
the operation of the 
electronic marketplace. e-
Auctions: further cost 
saving of 5% on prices 
(increased 
competitiveness). The use 
of catalogue and 
framework agreement: 
10% savings in prices.   Estimate of 
20% T-costs 
savings for 
EOs for the 
operation of 
the electronic 
marketplace 
DE  www.tek-
service.de (The 
administration of 
the Landratsamt Ostalbkreis) €49-299,000 €1-49,000  €100,000 year    
DE e-Catalogues and e- 
Ordering, 
developed by 
Procurement 
Agency of the 
Federal Ministry of 
the Interior     Each electronically 
executed order saves at 
least 6hrs (equating to 
€195 in personnel cost) 
compared to the simplest 
form of a single tender 
action.    
 
EN 154   EN COSTS for CAs BENEFITS for CAs ECONOMIC OPERATORS 
Country  Platform name  
Implementation costs Annual 
costs Savings Estimate benefits Other statistics  
Fee (EO) Benefits 
(EO) 
ES Municipality of 
Burgos €300-499,000 €49-299,000  Economic effect: 
€500-999,000. 
Price reduction of 
5-10 % of prices 
reduction ; 25-40 
% reduction in 
administrative 
burden    25-40 % 
reduction of 
administrativ
e burdens 
(administrati
on and 
providers) 
FR e-Bourgogne €5-10 million €5-10 million €3-4 million 
savings by 
mutualising the 
development and 
exploitation of the 
platform. 
Economic effects: 
Larger than €10 
million  Over 950 public entities  are users. Average 
number of notices online: 500. Over 17 
000 registered economic operators. 315 
000 downloads between 2005 and 2009   
IE National Platform €500-999,000 €49-299,000 €1-5 million "One authority even 
managed to halve its costs 
per tender from over 
£1,000 to below £500. 
This particular authority 
issues about 40 notices a 
year" 100,000 visitors a month on the website- 
more than double the number compared to 
the old website. The number of suppliers 
registered has also doubled from around 
15,000 to over 30,000.This website 
publishes over 95% of Ireland's OJEU 
notices.   
 
EN 155   EN COSTS for CAs BENEFITS for CAs ECONOMIC OPERATORS 
Country  Platform name  
Implementation costs Annual 
costs Savings Estimate benefits Other statistics  
Fee (EO) Benefits 
(EO) 
IT Albofornitori €1-5 million €1-5 million Economic effects: 
larger than €10 
million  7.000 suppliers; more than 40 awarding 
authorities; two re gional centralized 
awarding authorities; one association of 
500 local authorities; 3.000 tenders; more 
than 1 billion euro transaction over the 
European threshold; totally paperless 
procedure; only 90 days between the 
official notice and the contract (on 
average); best results for the most complex 
tender: 64 days for €290 million, 100 
suppliers, 900 items.   
IT IntercentER -Emilia 
Romagna €1-5 million €1-5 million Efficiency 
benefits of € 67.5 
million in 2008, 
and 45 man-years 
savings. 
(+102.7% from 
2007).   Reference point for 539 administrations 
(90% of local agencies), transactions for € 
419 million in 2008, with a 122% increase 
on 2007.   
LT  The allocated budget 
amounted to 
approximately €3.7 
million   Expected to provide e-
Notices integration with e-
Access, e-Submission and 
e-Evaluation, e-
Catalogues, e-Auctions, 
external time stamping 
and PKI infrastructure, 
improved security, better 
technical and internet 
infrastructure, better and 
more user friendly 
interface, free access and 
multilingual services (LT, 
EN)    
 
EN 156   EN COSTS for CAs BENEFITS for CAs ECONOMIC OPERATORS 
Country  Platform name  
Implementation costs Annual 
costs Savings Estimate benefits Other statistics  
Fee (EO) Benefits 
(EO) 
LV      The Government will 
save €1 million per year 
after 2009 by automating 
procurement procedures in 
the public sector     
NO Ehandel.no   Experiences from 
Norwegian public 
sector entities 
indicate a 
potential for 20-
40 % time 
reductions on 
handling of 
orders, goods 
receipt and 
invoices, and 
between 2-10 % 
price reductions in 
operations related procurement 
expenditures.  10,218 e-tenders in 2008. 60 Public entities 
on e-procurement. 453 Active suppliers on 
e-procurement. Aggregated e-Order value 
(last 12 months): $ 536,250,000. Number 
of e-Orders (last 12 months): 255,000. 
Around 60 % of hospitals are operative (or 
about to be). 30 of 435 municipalities are 
operative. None of the many small 
municipalities are operative. During 2009, 
80 public enterprises in Norway made use 
of the platform and the total procurement 
volume for 2009 has exceeded $3 billion. 
With the new solution, the goal is that total 
volume will increase to $16 billion by 2013   
PT all platforms   €28 million/year 
in administrative 
costs (Deloitte)  From August 2009 to April 2010, 32 301 
offers were submitted through the two 
leading electronic pl atforms, involving 
more than 12 400 suppliers and almost 
2000 different contracting authorities. The 
average number of electronic proposals per 
procedure is 3.4. Time of open procedures 
reduced from 88 to 39 days (from Vortal's 
brochure)   
 
EN 157   EN COSTS for CAs BENEFITS for CAs ECONOMIC OPERATORS 
Country  Platform name  
Implementation costs Annual 
costs Savings Estimate benefits Other statistics  
Fee (EO) Benefits 
(EO) 
PT Ministry of justice, 
using e-
Procurement 
platform (Vortal)    e-Tendering 
process greatly 
simplified and 
fully 
dematerialised, 
giving a 53 % 
process costs 
reduction      
RO SEAP portal €1-5 million €300-
499,000 Savings of 
22%.(official 
figures released in 
2003) Economic 
effects: Larger 
than €10 million  Mid-January 2010: Registered Contracting 
Authorities/Suppliers: 11,577/22,261; 
Published Notices/Request For Quotation 
Invitations: 145,130/239,397 ; Notices Sent 
To OJEU: 34,816 ; Published Catalogue 
Products: 185,182 ; Published Requests 
For Quotation/Dire ct Acquisitions: 
48,717/674,836 ; Awarded Acquisitions 
Total: 19,736,511,785.18 RON (approx. 
4.7 billion EUR, presumably referring to 
the total amount since the platform’s inception in 2002)   
SE platform OPICTen €500-999,000  €49-299,000 €1-5 million     
UK Public contracts 
Scotland €49-299,000  €49-299,000  Larger than 
€10,000,000  28,000 economic operators registered, 
(82% SMEs). Over 780,000 e-mail alerts 
have been sent to economic operators 
during the first 8 months of the service, 
alerting them to over 3,700 potential 
business opportunities. This has resulted in 
over 16,000 notes of interest on contracts 
since the service started, of which 81% are 
from SMEs.    
 
EN 158   EN COSTS for CAs BENEFITS for CAs ECONOMIC OPERATORS 
Country  Platform name  
Implementation costs Annual 
costs Savings Estimate benefits Other statistics  
Fee (EO) Benefits 
(EO) 
UK Supplier and 
Contract 
Management 
System  €500-999,000 €49-299,000  €1,000,000-
5,000,000  The SCMS used by over 2,600 buyers and 
procurement professionals throughout the 
region. Over 29,000 registered suppliers 
and over 4,600 active contracts with a 
value of over £2.5 billion, and about 2,000 
tendering opportunities per year   
UK Welsh platform €500-999,000 €49-299,000   Public  sector spending about £5 billion, 
over 50% advertised on the portal; 43,000 
registered suppliers, (24,229 based within 
Wales = 20% of the active Welsh supplier 
community, many of them are SMEs); 
2,500 procurement users from 200 Welsh 
CAs, 6,500 notices (total £8.3 billion) of 
which in 2009, £183 million consisted of 
'non OJEU' opportunities favourable to 
SMEs.   
Source: DG MARKT based on ePractic e website and Siemens-time.lex report 
 
EN 159   EN ANNEX IX– Phases or tools made mandatory in certain Member States  
Country Mandatory phase Mandatory 
tool e-Procurement mandatory for 
certain type of purchase/contracting 
authorities 
EU Usage of the standardised forms is mandatory 
above the EU thresholds; publication in the OJ 
is mandatory above the EU threshold.  CPV is 
already the 
mandatory tool 
within e-
Notifications 
in Europe  
Austria E-Submission  for certain types of 
procurements (Framework agreement, federal 
authorities) Mandatory e-
Signature; 
mandatory 
framework 
contracts for 
federal 
authorities Usage of the  central framework 
contracts offered via the portal of the 
Federal Procurement Company is 
mandatory for  federal agencies for 
specific goods and services (See 
Ordinance of the Minister of Finance 
BGBl II 2001/2008) 
Belgium E-Notification will be mandatory on the 
national platform in 2011. Mandatory e-
Signature   
Bulgaria  Mandatory e-
Signature   
Croatia Mandatory National platform approach. It is 
mandatory to publish tenders on a single 
National Portal. Obligations can be bound to 
certain criteria: European tenders, or tenders 
above a national threshold,  or tenders within a 
specific sector  Mandatory e-
Signature  The obligation to publish tenders on 
the National Portal can be bound to 
certain criteria: European tenders, or 
tenders above a natio nal threshold, or 
tenders within a specific sector such as 
ICT 
Cyprus It seems that since N ovember 2009, usage of 
the CyePS portal to submit electronic 
notifications has become  mandatory in Cyprus   
Czech 
Republic Mandatory National plat form approach: it is 
mandatory to publish tenders on a single 
National Portal. Obligation can be bound to 
certain criteria: European tenders, or tenders 
above a national threshold,  or tenders within a 
specific sector  Mandatory e-
Signature   
Denmark As of 1 February 2005, all public institutions in 
Denmark  may only accept invoices from 
suppliers in electronic format.  Thus, all 
public-sector entities have been required to 
convert all systems and administrative 
processes from physical to digital handling of 
invoices, credit notes and other transactions   
Estonia National e-Procurement platform is mandatory, 
for the publication of contract notices and 
contract award notices   
Finland    
 
EN 160   EN Country Mandatory phase Mandatory 
tool e-Procurement mandatory for 
certain type of purchase/contracting 
authorities 
France  E-Submission: Article 56 of the Public 
Procurement Code made the use of electronic 
procedures mandatory for informatics 
purchases above EUR 90,000 .  Mandatory e-
Signature  The use of the National Platform is 
mandatory for National contracting 
authorities.  Article 56 of the Public 
Procurement Code made the use of 
electronic procedures mandatory for 
informatics purchases above EUR 
90,000. 
Germany  Mandatory e-
Signature  The National e-Procurement Platform 
is mandatory for Federal Government 
Contracting authorities. 
Greece  Mandatory e-
Signature   
Hungary  Mandatory e-
Signature   
Ireland    
Italy The Financial Bill for the year 2007 
introduced a compulsory use, on behalf of 
state central administrations, of the 
framework contracts and the e-marketplace (MEPA) handled by MEF and Consip. Mandatory e-
Signature  The use of the National Platform is 
mandatory for National contracting 
authorities. 
Latvia  Mandatory e-
Signature   
Lichtenstein  Mandatory e-
Signature   
Lithuania  Mandatory e-
Signature   
Luxembourg Mandatory National platform approach: 
Publication of contract  notices on the national 
portal is mandatory for contract notices above 
and below thresholds Mandatory e-
Signature   
Malta The Department of Contracts acts also as 
central purchasing body, since it publishes calls 
for tenders estimated over €47,000 excluding 
VAT on behalf of most Government Ministries, 
Departments and Entities. The use of the 
services provided by the Department of 
Contracts is mandatory and only particular 
government entities can carry out their own 
procurement outside the Department of 
Contract s (Central Bank of Malta, the Malta 
Stock Exchange, the Malta Tourism Authority 
and Local Councils).    
Netherlands Usage of the portal is not mandatory, except for 
e-Notification, where usage will be mandatory 
under planned new legislation.  The National e-Procurement Platform 
is mandatory for Central Government 
Contracting authorities 
Norway  Mandatory national platform for tender 
notifications above EU thresholds (Doffin).   
 
EN 161   EN Country Mandatory phase Mandatory 
tool e-Procurement mandatory for 
certain type of purchase/contracting 
authorities 
Poland  Mandatory e-
Signature  The National e-Procurement Platform 
is mandatory for Central Government 
Contracting authorities 
Portugal e-Proc mandatory for all contra cting authorities Mandatory e-
Signature   
Romania Romania is running the “Mandatory National e-
Procurement Portal” model: it is mandatory to 
publish tenders on a single National Portal.   
Slovakia  Mandatory e-
Signature   
Slovenia The use of the National Platform is mandatory 
for all contracting authorities. The National 
Platform only includes e-Notification and e-
Access at the moment Mandatory e-
Signature   
Spain  Mandatory e-
Signature   The National e-Procurement Platform 
is mandatory for Central Government 
Contracting authorities 
Sweden E-Invoicing. The Swedish National Financial 
Management Authority wa s also responsible for 
the introduction of electronic invoicing for 
public authorities under the government 
(mandatory as of 1st of July 2008)    
United 
Kingdom   The National e-Procurement Platform 
is mandatory for Central Government 
Contracting authorities 
Source: DG MARKT based on Siemens-time.lex report