COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the document Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a computerised system for communication in cross-border civil and criminal proceedings (e-CODEX system), and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1726
Date: 2020-12-02
Institutions: Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, European Commission
Subjects: civil proceedings, criminal proceedings, cross-border cooperation, electronic document management, electronic government, exchange of information, information system, judicial cooperation in civil matters in the EU, judicial cooperation in criminal matters in the EU, operation of the Institutions

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 2.12.2020 SWD(2020) 541 final  COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  IMPACT ASSESSMENT  Accompanying the document Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a computerised system for communication in cross-border civil and criminal proceedings (e-CODEX system), and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1726          {COM(2020) 712 final} - {SEC(2020) 408 final} - {SWD(2020) 542 final}  
 
 
Table of Contents 

Introduction .................................................................................................................. 2 

Political and legal context ............................................................................................ 2 

The e-CODEX system.................................................................................................. 5 

What is the problem and why is it a problem? ............................................................. 8 

The problems ................................................................................................................ 8 

The effects of the problems ........................................................................................ 19 

How the problems will evolve ................................................................................... 20 

Baseline scenario ........................................................................................................ 21 

Intervention logic ....................................................................................................... 21 

Why should the EU act? ............................................................................................. 22 

What should be achieved / Objectives ....................................................................... 23 

What are the various options to achieve the objectives?............................................ 23 

Discarded options ....................................................................................................... 23 

Option 1: Baseline scenario ....................................................................................... 25 

Option 2: Non-regulatory option – Management by the Commission ....................... 25 

Option 3: Regulatory option – Management by an existing EU Agency .................. 26 

What are the impacts of the different policy options and who will be affected? ....... 26 

Option 1: Baseline scenario ....................................................................................... 27 

Common impacts of policy options 2-3 ..................................................................... 27 

Option 2: Non-regulatory option – Management by the Commission ....................... 33 

Option 3: Regulatory option – Management by an existing EU Agency .................. 35 

How do the options compare? .................................................................................... 39 

The Preferred option .................................................................................................. 40 

How would actual impacts be monitored and evaluated? .......................................... 41 

Annex 1: Procedural Information............................................................................... 43 

Annex 2: Stakeholders Consultation .......................................................................... 44 

Annex 3: Who is affected by the initiative and how? ................................................ 48 

Annex 4: The e-CODEX solution .............................................................................. 50 

Annex 5: Cost of installation of e-CODEX at Member State level ........................... 60 

Annex 6: Yearly benefits of digitalisation of the European Payment Order procedure ...... 63 

Glossary ..................................................................................................................... 64 

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1.1. 

1.2. 

2. 

2.1. 

2.2. 

2.3. 

2.4. 

2.5. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

5.1. 

5.2. 

5.3. 

5.4. 

6. 

6.1. 

6.2. 

6.3. 

6.4. 

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1.  INTRODUCTION 

1.1. Political and legal context 

e-Justice  is  a  key  feature  to  enhance  the  access  to  and  efficiency  of  justice  in  and  across 
Member States. In the context of a Digital Single Market that aims for high-speed, secure and 
trustworthy infrastructures and services, solutions for fostering e-Justice1 are part of the 2016 
eGovernment Action Plan2, most notably the e-Justice Portal3 as a one-stop shop for judicial 
information  in  the  EU.  The EU's work  on e-Justice is to a  large extent based on a  series of 
Strategies and Action Plans, the current ones being the 2019-2023 Strategy4 and Action Plan 
for 2019-20235.  

One  of  the  objectives  of  e-Justice  is  to  ensure  the  secure  communication  between  judicial 
authorities  in  legal  proceedings.  e-CODEX  (e-Justice  Communication  via  Online  Data 
EXchange)  is  a  key  IT tool to achieve this objective  by  allowing  direct  secure cross-border 
electronic messages exchange in the judicial area. The digital channel of communication has 
become increasingly relevant for ensuring the resilience of justice systems in the aftermath of 
the COVID-19 pandemic. 

e-CODEX  was  developed  between  2010  and  2016  by  21  EU  Member  States  with  the 
participation  of  other  countries/territories  and  organisations6.  Several  Member  States  have 
installed and are actually using the system. The objective was to develop a system with which 
the 21 participating Member States were aligned. They did not all implement it nationally, but 
they were involved in its creation. The goal was to create a common and interoperable system 
to respond to common needs. The total cost of the project development was about 24 million 
EUR  of  which  50%  were  funded  by  EU  grants7 and  50%  were  funded  by  the  participating 
Member States. The goal of the Member States consortium was reached with the development 
of  the  e-CODEX  system.  An  additional  2  million  EUR  was  awarded  for  maintaining  e-
CODEX  between  2016  and  2018  by  the  Me-CODEX  project  and  3  million  EUR  for  the 
period until mid-2021 (the currently ongoing Me-CODEX II project).  

e-CODEX is currently supporting the electronic communication between citizens and courts, 
and  between  Member  State  competent  authorities  in  civil  cross-border  proceedings.    For 
instance, work is ongoing to use e-CODEX to enable citizens to electronically sign and send 
applications  for  European  payment  orders 8 and  small  claims 9  via  the  European  e-Justice 
Portal to competent courts in the participating Member States.  It should  be noted, however, 
that e-CODEX can only be  used  for this purpose if the  applicable national law so  allows10. 

1  
2  

3  
4  
5  
6  

7  

8 

9  

10  

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52019XG0313(01) 
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/communication-eu-egovernment-action-plan-2016-
2020-accelerating-digital-transformation 
https://e-justice.europa.eu/home.do 
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52019XG0313(01)&rid=7 
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52019XG0313(02)&rid=6 
Austria,  Belgium,  Croatia,  Czech  Republic,  Estonia,  Finland,  France,  Germany,  Greece,  Hungary, 
Ireland,  Italy,  Jersey,  Latvia,  Lithuania,  Malta,  Netherlands,  Norway,  Poland,  Portugal,  Romania, 
Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, CCBE and CNUE. 
From  the  Competitiveness  and  Innovation  Framework  Programme  (CIP)  ICT  Policy  Support 
Programme   of DG CONNECT and through a DG JUST Action Grant via the Justice Programme. 
In accordance  with Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006 of the European Parliament and of the  Council of 
12 December  2006  creating  a  European  order  for  payment  procedure  (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32006R1896). 
In  accordance  with  Regulation  (EC)  No   861/2007  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of 
11 July  2007  establishing  a  European  Small  Claims  Procedure  (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02007R0861-20170714). 
The  use  of  e-CODEX  could  also  be  made  mandatory  in  the  EU  legal  instrument  which  provides  the 
legal basis for the procedure. 

2 

 
                                                 
Currently 12  Member States do not allow digital transmission of European  payment  orders; 
for  small  claims  the  number  is  15.  In  addition,  the  Commission  proposed  legislation  to 
provide for a mandatory digital channel for the purpose of service of documents and taking of 
evidence  in  civil  and  commercial  matters  in  201811.  On  30  June  2020,  the  co-legislators 
reached  agreement  on  revising  the  two  Regulations  concerned,  thus  making  the  use  of  the 
digital  communication  channel  mandatory,  subject  to  justified  exceptions12.  E-CODEX  is 
likely  to  be  chosen  as  the  means  of  digital  transmission  between  the  competent  national 
authorities. 

In  the  area  of  cooperation  in  criminal  matters,  e-CODEX  could  be  applied  to  enable  more 
efficient  judicial  cooperation  between  judicial  authorities,  thus  enhancing  the  fight  against 
cross-border  crime,  terrorism  and  cyber-crime.  This  covers  mutual  recognition  procedures 
under various instruments13, and other judicial cooperation procedures such as those under the 
Convention  on  Mutual  Assistance  in  Criminal  Matters  between  the  Member States  of  the 
European  Union,  the  corresponding  provisions  of  which  were  replaced  by  the  European 
Investigation  Order 14 .  In  this  context,  in  its  June  2016  conclusions 15 ,  the  Council  has 
requested  the  Commission  to  develop  a  platform  with  a  secure  communication  channel  for 
digital  exchanges  of  requests  for  electronic  evidence  under  the  Directive  on  the  European 
Investigation Order and replies between EU judicial authorities to improve criminal justice in 
cyberspace.  Member  State  experts  participating  in  the  development  of  the  platform  reached 
the conclusion, after considering different options, that e-CODEX would be the most suitable 
system to be used for such an exchange of electronic evidence. On that basis, the Commission 
is  developing  the  e-Evidence  Digital  Exchange  System  (eEDES),  using  e-CODEX  as  the 
communication channel. Member States are expected to connect to eEDES by 2021. 

Building  on  its  current  use  and  given  its  characteristics,  e-CODEX  has  the  potential  to 
become  the  main  digital  solution  for  cross-border  cooperation  between  judicial  and  other 
competent authorities in the European Union. The evaluation carried out by the Commission 
at the end of the project grant for the e-CODEX large-scale pilot, concluded indeed that this 
pilot  in  the  field  of  e-Justice  has  provided  for  the  key  building  blocks  in  achieving  secure, 
reliable exchanges in the judicial domain16. Moreover, one of the components of e-CODEX 
has been taken up and maintained by the Commission as the eDelivery building block within 

11 

12  
13  

14  

15  

16  

Proposal for a Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1393/2007 of the European Parliament and of 
the  Council  on  the  service  in  the  Member  States  of  judicial  and  extrajudicial  documents  in  civil  or 
commercial matters (service of documents) (COM/2018/379 final). Proposal for a Regulation amending 
Council  Regulation  (EC)  No  1206/2001  of  28  May  2001  on  cooperation  between  the  courts  of  the 
Member States in the taking of evidence in civil or commercial matters (COM/2018/378 final). 
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_20_1395 
The  EU  has  adopted  several  legislative  instruments  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  mutual 
recognition: European Arrest Warrant – FD 2002/584; Freezing orders of property and evidence – FD 
2003/577;  Financial  penalties  –  FD  2005/214;  Confiscation  orders  –  FD  2006/783;  Transfer  of 
prisoners and custodial sentences –  FD 2008/909; Probation decisions and alternative  sanctions – FD 
2008/947; European supervision order in pre-trial procedures – FD 2009/829; Prevention and settlement 
of  conflicts  of  jurisdiction  –  FD  2009/948;  European  Investigation  Order  –  Directive  2014/41/EU; 
European Protection Order - Directive 2011/99/EU. 
Directive  2014/41/EU  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  3  April  2014  regarding  the 
European Investigation Order in criminal matters, OJ L 130 of1 May 2014, p. 1. 
Conclusions  of  the  Council  of  the  European  Union  on  improving  criminal  justice  in  cyberspace,  ST 
9579/16.   
Evaluation by the Commission (three external experts) of the e-Justice Communication via Online Data 
Exchange  project  (e-CODEX)  submitted  in  the  ICT  Policy  Support  Programme  within  the 
Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), grant agreement n° 270968. 

3 

 
                                                 
the  Connecting  Europe  Facility  (CEF)17,  which  is  testimony  of  its  reusability  not  only  for 
justice but also in  other  areas. The  reuse of  the  CEF building blocks has been adopted  as  a 
policy by the Commission's  IT  Board18.  The European e-Justice Portal is  one of the  Digital 
Service  Infrastructures  (DSIs)  in  the  context  of  CEF,  using  the  building  blocks,  including 
eDelivery and e-Signature in the implementation of a connection to the e-CODEX network on 
the Portal. 

The Council has requested in repeated conclusions a permanent solution for the management 
of  e-CODEX,  most  recently  in  October  202019.  Moreover,  the  Justice  Ministers  of  France, 
Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Estonia have written to the Commission, asking that 
the sustainability of e-CODEX is ensured, preferably by handing over the management to the 
European  Agency  for  the  operational  management  of  large-scale  IT  systems  in  the  area  of 
freedom, security and justice (eu-LISA). 

The  eu-LISA  agency  initially  operated  only  the  Schengen  Information  System  (SIS  II),  the 
Visa  Information  System  (VIS)  and  the  asylum  and  irregular  migration  database  Eurodac. 
However,  its  mandate  has  been  extended  and  the  agency  has  been  tasked  with  the 
development and future management of a number of new systems in the area of home affairs, 
namely  the  Entry/Exit  System  (EES),  the  European  Travel  Information  and  Authorisation 
System  (ETIAS)  and  the  European  Criminal  Records  Information  System  for  third-country 
nationals (ECRIS-TCN). It is also in charge of modernising the Schengen Information System 
(SIS) and the Visa Information System (VIS). Moreover, under Regulation (EU) 2019/817 on 
establishing  a  framework  for  interoperability  between  EU  information  systems20,  eu-LISA 
was given the task of ensuring technical interoperability between these systems.    

The  present  impact  assessment  aims  to  support  a  policy  decision  by  the  Commission  on 
whether the e-CODEX project should be provided with a specific legal basis, and which are 
the  operational  management  options  for  it.  While  the  support  from  the  Council  and  its 
Member States for maintaining the e-CODEX system is strong, as set out above, this impact 
assessment will attempt to assess independently the options for the permanent management of 
the system against the baseline where the system is not maintained at central level and thus is 
allowed to develop in an uncoordinated manner. 

1.2. The e-CODEX system 

e-CODEX is a system that can be used in or between Member States to support cross-border 
operation  of  procedures  in  the  field  of  justice.  Through  e-CODEX,  the  participants  have 
jointly developed interoperable software building blocks and have implemented them in real 

17  

18  

19  

20  

in 

to 

public 

ensure 

follows 

solutions 

administration. 

the  building  blocks  also 

The  CEF  building  blocks  (eDelivery,  eID,  eInvoicing,  eSignature  and  eTranslation)  are  cross-sector 
software 
See 
interoperability 
https://ec.europa.eu/cefdigital/wiki/display/CEFDIGITAL/About+CEF+building+blocks for details. 
Operational  conclusions  on  the  10th  IT  Board  meeting  on  19  September  2016.  The  commitment  to 
using 
the  eGovernment  Action  Plan  of  2016 
from 
(https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/communication-eu-egovernment-action-plan-2016-
2020-accelerating-digital-transformation) 
Council  Conclusions  “Access  to  Justice  –  Seizing  the  Opportunities  of  Digitalisation”  (OJ  C  342  I, 
14.10.2020, p.1)  
Regulation  (EU)  2019/817  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  20  May  2019  on 
establishing a framework for  interoperability between EU information systems in the  field  of borders 
and  visa  and  amending  Regulations  (EC)  No  767/2008,  (EU)  2016/399,  (EU)  2017/2226,  (EU) 
2018/1240, (EU) 2018/1726 and (EU) 2018/1861 of the European Parliament and of the Council and 
Council Decisions 2004/512/EC and 2008/633/JHA 

4 

 
 
                                                 
life settings through piloting work. This package of software building blocks can be used to 
set up and operate an e-CODEX access point irrespective of the intended business context. 

The technical architecture chosen in e-CODEX is a decentralised four corner model realised 
by implementing the OASIS ebMS3.0 / AS421 standard. This means:  

  Every  participant  hosts  its  own  e-CODEX  access  point  on  the  basis  of  the  software 
package  and  consisting  of  a  gateway  and  a  connector  (see  below);  no  central 
component  is  involved in  the  communication.  The participant is  also responsible for 
hosting and running these components. 

  The  connection  to  the  national  backend  systems  is  channelled  by  a  so-called 
"gateway" (DOMIBUS / eDelivery Access Point). An e-CODEX message flow would 
be: backend application A sends to gateway A, which in turn sends to gateway B, and 
then further to backend application B. 

  Some  functionalities  necessary  for  the  message  exchange  within  the  justice  domain 
are  not  part  of  the  ebMS3.0  /  AS4  standard.  These  were  realised  in  a  software 
component called the "connector" (DOMIBUS), which builds the bridge between the 
Gateway and the backend applications. 

The  picture  below  presents  a  high-level  view  of 

the  e-CODEX  architecture:

Figure 1: e-CODEX overview 

End  users  do  not  need  to  install  e-CODEX  to  use  it.  They  access  it  through  national  or 
European systems  available  to  them. From an end-user perspective,  the use  of e-CODEX is 
therefore  transparent.  Its  "hidden  infrastructure"  ensures  the  secure  communication  between 
all user-facing systems (such as the European e-Justice Portal or the national system to which, 
e.g., all lawyers are given access). 

21  

To  enable  the  use  of  products  of  different  vendors  as  well  as  open  source  products,  ebMS  3.0  /  AS4 
were  chosen  as  technical  standards  for  communication  between  gateways.  Link  to  OASIS  standard: 
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-msg/ebms/v3.0/profiles/AS4-profile/v1.0/AS4-profile-v1.0.html 

5 

The “big picture”Country BCountry AClaimantDefendantLawyerCourtCountry CCourtE-Justice PortalNationalsystemNationalsystemNationalsystemE-CODEX gatewayE-CODEX gatewaye-DeliveryplatformE-CODEX gatewayE-CODEX gateway 
 
 
                                                 
Annex 4 provides a full description of the e-CODEX system and explains how it functions. 

In  summary,  the  objective  of  e-CODEX  is  to  enable  any  stakeholder/authority  in  Member 
State  A  to  communicate  via  national  gateways  with  any  other  stakeholder/authority  in 
Member State B as depicted below: 

Figure 2: Communication from claimant to court 

Figure 1 depicts the usage of e-CODEX. However, it has to be distinguished clearly between 
the  usage  of  e-CODEX  and  the  responsibility  of  the  entity  (agency  or  the  Commission)22 
which  ensures  the  management  and  maintenance  of  the  e-CODEX  components.  This  entity 
shall be solely responsible for the operational management of the e-CODEX components, and 
not for setting up these components and running them in the different Member States that use 
e-CODEX. Similarly, the e-Justice Portal is also a user of e-CODEX, similarly to the Member 
States – it operates and runs its own installation of the e-CODEX components. Consequently, 
the activities and the costs to be considered  for the entity managing e-CODEX are the ones 
for the operational management of these components at central level, but not for running and 
operating them for the different users of e-CODEX.  

The  e-CODEX  system  provides  standard  components  for  a  communication  system  for  the 
justice area, but it is more than that - it provides for all the necessary standards to allow legal 
electronic  communication  between  Members  States  or  authorities  in  specific  cross-border 
legal procedures, as described in Annex 1 to the legal proposal. Figure 3 describes the three 
main components of the system. The e-CODEX access point software package consists of the 
DOMIBUS Gateway on the one hand, which has been transferred to the Commission and has 
evolved into the eDelivery building block within CEF, and on the other hand the DOMIBUS 
Connector,  which  includes  security  functionalities  like  signature  verification,  a  secure 
container  for  message  transportation,  and  the  workflow  for  message  sending,  including 
evidence handling. While eDelivery, as part of the CEF building blocks, can be used across 
sectors, the functions of the Connector are tailor-made for the needs of the justice sector. In 
addition, e-CODEX also provides the templates for digital forms (XSD schemas) for specific 
judicial  procedures  as  its  third  element.  Presently,  only  the  justice-specific  components,  i.e. 
the Connector and the digital templates remain under the responsibility of the Member State 
consortium and require a permanent solution for their management. 

22  

The options for management of e-CODEX (agency or Commission) are described below in section 5. 

6 

EU levelMember state BMember state AClaimantCourtCommonexchangeplatformNational domainNational domainCross-borderdomainNational Gateway 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
Figure 3: Main e-CODEX components and their functions 

The  e-CODEX  system  is  future-proof  since  it  is  interoperable  by  design  and  works  with 
national  systems,  without  requiring  changing  those  systems.  The  e-CODEX  Connector  will 
allow  connection  to  the  e-CODEX  system  from  any  system  (current  or  future).  The  entity 
entrusted  with  the  management  of  e-CODEX  will  be  tasked  with  updating  the  system  and 
ensuring its compatibility with industry standards etc.  

2.  WHAT IS THE PROBLEM AND WHY IS IT A PROBLEM? 

2.1. The problems 

2.1.1. Current  inefficiencies  in  cross-border  communication  in  civil  and  criminal 

matters due to narrow use of e-CODEX 

Currently,  where  national  IT  solutions  exist  for  judicial  authorities  they  have  often  been 
developed in an uncoordinated manner, leading to different, fragmented IT systems across the 
Member  States.  This  leads  to  multiple  systems  being  developed  for  similar  procedures,  as 
well as to data being non-compatible or non-exchangeable between legal procedures. 

The  e-CODEX  system  has  been  developed  exactly  for  this  purpose,  i.e.  to  overcome  a 
fragmented  incompatible  variety  of  national  IT-tools  for  secure  electronic  transmission  of 
information  in  cross-border proceedings,  where  such transmission is allowed under national 
law.  It has been  in  use  since 2013,  but  only by  a limited  number of  Member States and for 
piloting only certain legal procedures. This limited use of e-CODEX means that its potential 
to  overcome  the  inefficiencies  resulting  from  fragmented  national  IT  systems  is  not  fully 
exploited. One of the stakeholders responding to the inception impact assessment has pointed 
out the need to further extend the e-CODEX system to cover more Member States23. 

23  

Response by Deutscher EDV-Gerichtstag e.V. 

7 

 
 
 
                                                 
  The problem drivers 

So  far,  e-CODEX  has  been  maintained  thanks  to  EU  financing.  This  approach  does  not 
provide  for  the  much-needed  sustainability.  The  consortium  of  21  Member  States  that 
participated in the development of the system will not provide for the long-term management 
of the system. They consider that managing the system on the basis of temporary grants is not 
a sustainable solution – in order to ensure that e-CODEX could become the default system for 
judicial  procedure  in  the  future.  The  Member  States  believe  that  it  must  have  a  more 
permanent  base  that  could  ensure  its  operational  management,  as  witnessed  by  several 
Council conclusions (e.g. from 2014, 2015 and 201624). 

Moreover,  among  the Member States participating in the e-CODEX consortium, only  about 
half have so far decided to participate in an e-CODEX pilot relating to a specific procedure25. 
There  are  several  reasons  for  this,  including  inadmissibility  of  electronic  exchanges  under 
national  procedural  law,  lack  of  available  tools  at  national  level  to  fulfil  the  system 
requirements, national priorities and available resources. According to a study carried out by 
the  e-CODEX  consortium26,  the  uncertainty  of  obtaining  a  return  on  investment  if  the  e-
CODEX  project  was  not  maintained  in  the  long-term  was  quoted  as  a  reason  for  Member 
States not to join the piloting. In one case, a Member State27 joined a pilot for the EPO, but 
discontinued its participation later, due to the small amount of eligible cross-border cases. In 
general, the  reasons for piloting are: the return on investment (for instance the re-use of the 
developments  and/or  amount  of  expected  cases),  an  already  existing  national  solution, 
improvement  of  existing  procedures,  the  targeted  user–group  and  promoting  the  aim  of  the 
use case. 

Moreover, without a recognised EU system for digital communication, there is less incentive 
for  Member  States  to  move  towards  digitalisation  of  the  judiciary.  Except  for  a  few  recent 
developments, EU legislation does not mandate the use of the digital communication and does 
not define a common system for the justice area. The e-CODEX system cannot be referenced 
in EU legislation as long as it has not been given a proper legal basis. 

It is not only the uncertainty in financing that calls into question the stability and permanence 
of e-CODEX  as a  system. The  current consortium-based management,  where  governance is 
regulated  by  agreement  between  Member  States  authorities  of  uncertain  legal  value,  is  not 
adequate for a permanent system. A transparent decision-making process, which ensures the 
involvement  of  Member  States  and  other  relevant  stakeholders,  is  lacking.  Any  permanent 
base for e-CODEX must therefore include an appropriate governance framework. 

Without  a  sustainable  solution  for  the  long-term  operational  management  of  e-CODEX,  the 
uncertainty  about  the  future  management,  both  in  terms  of  governance  and  of  ensuring  the 
financing  for  the  ongoing  functioning  and  further  development  of  the  e-CODEX  system,  is 
likely  to  contribute  to  the  so  far  low  uptake  of  the  (voluntary)  system  among  the  Member 
States. 

  The size of the problem 

24  

25  

26  
27  

at 

recently 

Most 
the 
(http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-14465-2016-INIT/en/pdf) 
All Member States, however, have taken part in the drafting of the Multiannual e-Justice Action Plan 
2019 - 2023, that identified e-CODEX as a key project for European e-Justice. 
Study carried out within Work Package 3 of the e-CODEX project. 
Estonia. 

December 

Council 

2016 

JHA 

in 

8 

 
 
 
                                                 
The current use of e-CODEX in different judicial procedures 

Digital  procedures  have  changed  the  way  people  work.  Therefore,  many  countries  have 
chosen  a  gradual  geographical  deployment  and  effort  is  being  put  into  communication 
activities to raise the general awareness of the judicial tools, especially within civil and family 
law.  In  this  context,  the  e-CODEX  system  is  an  essential  tool  for  interconnecting  national 
systems,  primarily  at  cross-border  level.    So  far,  the  Member  States  participating  in  the  e-
CODEX consortium have launched seven use cases or pilots to apply e-CODEX to a specific 
legal procedure. In general, while  activities on extending the  geographical coverage and the 
number of connected users are continuing, the actual uptake by Member States remains rather 
low. 
Eight  Member  States 28  (and  the  Commission  through  the  European  e-Justice  Portal) 
participate  in  the  European  Order  for  Payment  (EPO)29 pilot.  The  connection  mediated 
1795  electronic  cross-border  messages  in  2016.  In  terms  of  potential  annual  number  of 
exchanges,  in  the  year  2016  the  Austrian  court  "Bezirksgericht  für  Handelssachen  Wien", 
competent  for  EPO  for  the  whole  of  Austria,  received  a  total  number  of  3328  cases.  The 
German district court "Amtsgericht Wedding" in Berlin, competent for EPO for the whole of 
Germany, received in the same year a total number of 3624 cases. Both courts are connected 
to their national legal communication system and to e-CODEX. The Austrian court received 
1503 cases in electronic form (mainly from Austrian lawyers who can file in electronic form). 
The German court received 182 cases in electronic form (mainly from Austrian lawyers via e-
CODEX,  which  interlinks  the  Austrian  and  German  national  communication  system). 
Numbers  are  expected  to  increase  as  from  2021  when  the  e-Justice  Portal  will  enable 
electronic  submission  of  EPO  applications  to  all  participating  authorities  with  e-CODEX 
connection for all European citizens and companies. 
The Small Claims (SC)30 pilot connects eight Member States31 (and the Commission through 
the  European  e-Justice  Portal).  The  procedure  has  great  potential  since  it  allows  citizens  to 
directly  file  claims.  However,  it  is  not  yet  a  well-known  legal  instrument  and  its  use  is 
hampered  by  practical  barriers  (need  for  paper  submissions,  finding  the  competent  court  in 
another  Member  State,  etc.).  Seeing  its  usefulness,  an  effort  is  being  made  within  Me-
CODEX 32  to  create  more  visibility.  This  activity,  coupled  with  further  actions  by  the 
Commission,  should  contribute  to  raising  the  number  of  cases  in  general  and  the  ones 
exchanged via e-CODEX in particular. 
Three Member  States33 and  the  European Chamber  of Judicial Officers/ Bailiffs (CEHJ) are 
working on interconnecting in the European Account Preservation Order (EAPO)34 pilot. 
In  cooperation  with  other  projects,  an  effort  is  being  made  within  Me-CODEX  to  link  the 
different  entities  involved  in  this  procedure,  for  instance  through  the  use  of  directories.  For 
the EAPO procedure, which frequently requires urgent action, the use of the digital channel 
for lodging Preservation Orders can greatly facilitate creditors and courts. 

28  
29  

30  

31  
32  
33  
34  

AT, DE, EL, FR, CZ, IT, MT, PL  - at various level of readiness. 
Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 
creating a European order for payment procedure 
Regulation  (EC)  No  861/2007  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  11  July  2007 
establishing a European Small Claims Procedure 
AT, DE, EL, FR, CZ, FR, MT, PL – at various level of readiness. 
See above section 1.1. 
FR, NL, PL 
Regulation  (EU)  No  655/2014  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  15  May  2014 
establishing a European Account Preservation Order procedure to facilitate cross-border debt recovery 
in civil and commercial matters 

9 

 
                                                 
Three  countries 35  participate  in  the  pilot  on  Matrimonial  Matters  and  Parental 
Responsibility.  Around  18  million  couples  of  mixed  nationality  live  in  Europe.  This  also 
means a high number  of  people who  need to deal with issues regarding children, properties 
and pensions. The availability of electronic tools would make it easier to address these issues, 
which entail contact with authorities across borders. 

The  procedure  for  Mutual  Legal  Assistance  (MLA)  under  the  Convention  on  Mutual 
Assistance in Criminal Matters between the Member States of the European Union has been 
piloted  by  seven  Member  States 36  through  e-CODEX,  with  768  cross-border  requests 
processed in 2016 between Germany and the Netherlands. As of 22 May 2017, the Directive 
on  the  European  Investigation  Order  replaced  the  corresponding  provisions  of  the 
Convention, but not all Member States have yet transposed it. Responding to a request from 
the Council, the Commission has built the e-Evidence Digital Exchange System (e-EDES), 
which  enabled  the  digital  exchange  of  European  Investigation  Orders  between  the  national 
competent authorities. The first wave of countries are expected to be connected by the end of 
202037, and all Member States should be connected by this system, based on e-CODEX.  
The  Mutual  Recognition  of  Financial  Penalties  pilot  connects  two  Member  States38.  The 
objective is to facilitate the recognition and enforcement of a financial penalty (traffic fines) 
that has been imposed in one Member State on an individual from another Member State. The 
execution  takes  place  in  the  Member  State,  where  the  individual  is  domiciled  or  habitually 
resident. Taking alone the number of eligible cases France would send to the Netherlands and 
Spain (about 20.000/year, respectively), this is a pilot with potentially a very high volume of 
expected exchanges. 
There is also the iSupport system39 for the cross-border recovery of maintenance obligations 
under the EU 2009 Maintenance Regulation40 and the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention, 
which makes use of e-CODEX for communication. So far, three Member States and the State 
of  California  (USA)  are  connected.  Several  other  Member  States  are  preparing  to  join  this 
system.  

The e-CODEX consortium carried out an evaluation of the pilots in 2016. Overall, the users 
in  the  piloting  countries  reported  positive  experiences  with  using  e-CODEX.  In  the  case  of 
EPO,  the  use  of  e-CODEX  was  considered  to  lead  to  time  savings  –  e.g.  in  Greece,  the  
lawyers surveyed estimated that the necessary time on a case had been reduced by 1/3 with e-
CODEX. The Austrian lawyers, who used e-CODEX to send applications to Germany, judged 
after  six  months  of  piloting,  the  solution  to  be  “a  good  beginning”,  but  missed,  in  terms  of 
user-friendliness,  a  better  link  between  the  technical  description  and  the  practical  use.  For 
small  claims,  at  the  time  of  evaluation  no  real  cases  had  been  transmitted  between  the 
participating countries Austria and Poland. However, the Polish legal professionals who have 
been  introduced  to  the  e-CODEX  solution  expect  it  to  speed  up  the  delivery,  and  also 
highlighted the  fact that  the forms are  presented  in a friendly way in the  national language. 
For the MLA pilot, the users in DE and NL considered that the provision of structured data 
speeds  up  the  administration  for  incoming  requests.  However,  getting  acquainted  with  the 
new system, which in some cases has required an alignment of the usual workflow, takes time 
and requires training of staff and all the benefits of e-CODEX may therefore only materialise 

35  
36  
37  
38  
39  
40  

IT, FR, PL  
DE, NL, and AT, BE, ES, EL, FR, PT testing 
Planned readiness in 2020: AT, BE, LV, PT, FI 
DE, NL, FR (in progress) 
https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/specialised-sections/child-support/isupport1 
Council Regulation (EC) No 4/2009 of 18 December 2008 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition 
and enforcement of decisions and cooperation in matters relating to maintenance obligations 

10 

 
                                                 
in the future. Overall, although high expectations from all categories of users to the benefits 
of e-CODEX were identified in the evaluation, the user uptake has been limited except for the 
Austrian lawyers. 

The  evaluation  carried  out  by  the  Commission  at  the  end  of  the  project  grant  for  the  e-
CODEX large-scale pilot confirmed that overall good progress had been made in developing 
the pilots and in particular in defining a methodology for ensuring semantic interoperability 
for each of the pilots41. 

Level of digitalisation in the Member States and use of e-CODEX 

The low uptake of e-CODEX among the Member States mirrors to some extent the varying 
level of digitalisation in the Member States.  

Several  of  the  Member  States,  which  have  implemented  and  used  e-CODEX,  belong  to  the 
countries scoring the highest in terms of digitalisation of the  judiciary  in  accordance with a 
study  carried  out  by  the  Council  of  Europe’s  European  Commission  for  the  Efficiency  of 
Justice (CEPEJ) in 201642  
The  diverging  uptake  of  IT  in  the  judiciary  in  Europe  is  also  illustrated  by  the  202043 EU 
Justice Scoreboard, which measured the availability in the Member States of electronic means 
for  submitting  and  following  a  claim  online  (figure  27  of  the  Scoreboard).  The  2018 
Scoreboard contains in addition a comparison of the possibilities to use online means in the 
context  of  small  claims  proceedings  in  the  Member  States  (figure  29)44.  This  Scoreboard 
illustrated also the use of ICT services in exchanges between courts and lawyers (figure 30): 

41  
42  

43  
44  

on 

See footnote 16. 
CEPEJ 
courts 
Study 
(http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/cooperation/cepej/evaluation/2016/publication/CEPEJ%20Study%2024%20-
%20IT%20report%20EN%20web.pdf) 
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0306 
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/GA/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52018DC0364 

information 

technology 

European 

use 

the 

of 

in 

11 

 
 
 
                                                 
More recently, the “mapping exercise” carried out in 2020 by the Commission demonstrates 
that  a  number  of  Member  States  have  already  made  certain  progress  in  the  digitalisation  of 
their justice systems. However, the level of digitalisation depends on the particular context in 
which  the  technology  is  used.  Furthermore,  as  regards  the  digitalisation  of  the  cross-border 
cooperation,  Member  States  do  not  share  a  common  approach  on  the  use  of  the  electronic 
means  of  communication,  for  instance  some  allow  plain  e-mail  and  others  require  more 
stringent  level  of  communication,  or  do  not  permit  such  means  at  all.  The  existence  of 
country-specific  conditions,  e.g.  on  the  use  of  specific  IT  systems  or  electronic  signatures 

12 

 
 
 
adds additional complexity to the overall picture. The absence of appropriate digital channels 
to communicate with the relevant JHA agencies and bodies is also confirmed by the data45. 

e-CODEX  can play  a role  not  only  in improving the efficiency of  cross-border proceedings 
but also creating an incentive to help Member States lagging behind in terms of digitalisation 
to catch up. The evaluation carried out by the e-CODEX consortium on the e-CODEX pilots 
highlighted  the  positive  effects  on  the  national  justice  system  in  Greece,  as  underlined  by 
legal practitioners and courts in the country46. 

National  legislation  may  also  prevent  Member  States  from  using  digital  means  of 
communication  with  judicial  authorities.  For  example,  in  the  case  of  the  European  Small 
Claims Procedure (ECSP), the decision on whether or not to allow electronic submissions of 
claims is left to the Member States. 12 Member States have notified that this is not allowed by 
their  national  legislation.  Similarly,  for  European  Order  for  Payment  procedure  (EPO),  15 
Member States have notified that electronic submission is not legally  possible. The benefits 
provided  by  e-CODEX  could  serve  as  a  stimulant  for  Member  States  to  remove  such  legal 
barriers to digital submission of claims.  

2.1.2. Risk  of  inefficiencies  in  cross-border  communication  in  civil  and  criminal 

matters due to expiry of e-CODEX 

If e-CODEX is not maintained, a common tool for digitalising cross-border legal procedures 
will be lost, resulting in a lost opportunity to improve judicial cooperation in Europe and the 
functioning  of  the  Digital  Single  Market.  Moreover,  the  benefits  of  the  current  uses  of  e-
CODEX in civil matters, e.g. for exchange of EPOs, small claims or criminal matters, such as 
exchange  of  ML/EIO  requests,  will  be  lost  if  e-CODEX  is  not  maintained.  The  lack  of  a 
common interoperable communication system for the judiciary would reduce the efficiency of 
information exchange in the procedures currently covered by e-CODEX.  

The  e-CODEX  consortium  has  delivered  the  system  as  foreseen  and  it  is  being  used  in  a 
number of pilots as indicated above in section 2.1.1. It is important to note that once the IT 
system was developed, the mandate and the funding for the functioning of the consortium has 
ended.  Therefore,  for  the  operational  management  and  future  extension  to  other  judicial 
procedures a solution has to be found to ensure the proper financing and governance. This is 
actually a pre-requisite for the adoption by the Member States that have not piloted the system 
so far.  

Lack of maintenance of e-CODEX also means that electronic exchange of MLA/EIO requests 
provided by eEDES will be endangered. An important tool delivering on the Council's request 
of  June  2016  to  establish  a  platform  for  online  exchange  of  electronic  evidence47 would  no 
longer be available. 

  The problem drivers 

45  

46  
47  

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Accompanying the document COMMUNICATION 
FROM  THE  COMMISSION  TO  THE  EUROPEAN  PARLIAMENT,  THE  COUNCIL,  THE 
EUROPEAN  ECONOMIC  AND  SOCIAL  COMMITTEE  AND  THE  COMMITTEE  OF  THE 
REGIONS  Digitalisation  of  justice  in  the  European  Union  A  toolbox  of  opportunities  –  SWD(2020) 
540 
e-CODEX D3.5/D3.7/D3.8 WP3 Final Report 
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/06/09-criminal-activities-cyberspace/ 

13 

 
 
 
                                                 
Like for the narrow use and low uptake of e-CODEX, the uncertainty about financing and the 
absence  of  a  clear  governance  framework  are  the  main  drivers  behind  the  problem  of 
inefficiency in cross-border judicial communication, which would be the result of the expiry 
of e-CODEX. 

Moreover, over time, the progressive divergences between IT systems in the Member States 
would  lead  to  these  systems  being  no  longer  able  to  communicate  with  each  other.  In  turn, 
this  will  exacerbate  the  inefficiencies  in  cross-border  judicial  cooperation.  The  process  of 
interoperability will go into reverse. 

  The size of the problem 

The  potential  of  the  Digital  Single  Market  is  an  estimated  EUR  415  billion  a  year48.  Easy 
access to justice is crucial to allow businesses and consumers to reap the full benefits of the 
Digital  Single  Market.  The  availability  of  easy  access  to  cross-border  justice  will  have  a 
positive influence on cross-border commerce. Citizens and companies need to have access to 
effective  cross-border  justice  when  dispute  resolution  fails.  Without  maintenance  of  e-
CODEX, one valuable instrument to facilitating access to justice will no longer be available. 

Inventory of instruments / procedures where e-CODEX could be used 

In  order  to  understand  the  magnitude  of  unrealised  potential  in  case  e-CODEX  is  not 
maintained, it is useful to provide a list of instruments or procedures where e-CODEX could 
be applied as a dedicated online communication tool: 

Civil law instruments: 

Full name: 

Use: 

Ongoing  pilot  since  2013 
AT,  DE,  EL,  FR,  CZ,  IT, 
MT, PL 

Ongoing  pilot  since  2015 
AT,  DE,  EL,  FR,  CZ,  FR, 
MT, PL 

Ongoing  pilot  since  2016 
FR, NL, PL (testing) 

European  Payment  Order 
(EPO) 

European 
Procedure (ESCP) 

Small  Claims 

European 
Preservation Order (EAPO) 

Account 

of 

of 

(EC) 

(EC) 

Regulation 
No 
1896/2006  of  the  European 
the 
and 
Parliament 
Council  of  12  December 
2006  creating  a  European 
order for payment procedure 
Regulation 
No 
861/2007  of  the  European 
Parliament 
the 
and 
Council  of  11  July  2007 
establishing 
a  European 
Small Claims Procedure 
Regulation 
No 
655/2014  of  the  European 
Parliament 
the 
and 
Council  of  15  May  2014 
a  European 
establishing 
Account  Preservation  Order 
procedure  to  facilitate  cross-
border  debt  recovery  in  civil 

(EU) 

of 

48  

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_1232 

14 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
Matrimonial  Matters 
Parental Responsibility 

and 

Maintenance 
(iSupport) 

obligations 

Service of documents 

Taking of evidence 

Criminal law instruments: 
MLA 
Investigation Order (EIO) 

request 

/  European 

Mutual 
Financial Penalties 

Recognition 

of 

the 

and commercial matters 
Council  Regulation  (EC)  No 
2201/2003  of  27  November 
2003  concerning  jurisdiction 
and 
recognition  and 
enforcement  of  judgments  in 
matrimonial  matters  and  the 
matters 
parental 
of 
responsibility 
Council  Regulation  (EC)  No 
4/2009 of 18 December 2008 
on 
jurisdiction,  applicable 
and 
recognition 
law, 
enforcement of decisions and 
cooperation 
in  matters 
to  maintenance 
relating 
obligations 
Regulation 
No 
1393/2007  of  the  European 
the 
and 
Parliament 
Council  of  13  November 
2007  on  the  service  in  the 
Member  States  of  judicial 
and  extrajudicial  documents 
commercial 
or 
in 
matters 
of 
(service 
documents) 
Council  Regulation  (EC)  No 
1206/2001  of  28  May  2001 
on  cooperation  between  the 
courts  of  the  Member  States 
in  the  taking  of  evidence  in 
civil or commercial matters 

(EC) 

civil 

of 

Directive  2014/41/EU  of  the 
European  Parliament  and  of 
the  Council  of  3  April  2014 
European 
regarding 
the 
Investigation 
in 
criminal matters 

Order 

Council Framework Decision 
2005/214/JHA 
24 
the 
2005 
February 
application of the principle of 
to 
mutual 

recognition 

of 
on 

15 

Ongoing  pilot  since  2015 
IT, PL, FR (testing) 

Ongoing  pilot  since  2016 
DE,  PT,  FR,  California 
(USA) 

Possible  solution  of  choice 
application 
the  revised 
in 
Regulation 

Possible  solution  of  choice 
application 
the  revised 
in 
Regulation 

development 

Ongoing  pilot  (MLA)  since 
2015 
(EIO) 
In 
Planned  readiness  in  2020: 
AT,  BE,  LV,  PT,  FI 
Planned  readiness  in  2021: 
DK,  HU,  LT,  BG,  DE,  MT, 
SE, ES, IT, LU and EE 
Readiness  in  2021+:  SI,  SK, 
PL, FR, CZ, HR, EL, IE, RO, 
CY and NL. 
Ongoing  pilot  since  2016 
NL, FR 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Transfer  of  prisoners  and 
custodial sentences  

Freezing  orders  of  property 
and evidence 

Confiscation orders   

Probation 
alternative sanctions  

decisions 

and 

European  supervision  order 
in pre-trial procedures  

Prevention  and  settlement  of 
conflicts of jurisdiction  

of 

recognition 

financial penalties 
Council Framework Decision 
27 
2008/947/JHA 
November  2008  on 
the 
application of the principle of 
to 
mutual 
judgments 
probation 
and 
decisions  with  a  view  to  the 
probation 
of 
supervision 
measures 
alternative 
and 
sanctions 
Council Framework Decision 
2003/577/JHA  of  22  July 
2003  on  the  execution  in  the 
European  Union  of  orders 
freezing property or evidence 
Council Framework Decision 
2006/783/JHA  of  6  October 
2006 on the application of the 
mutual 
of 
principle 
recognition 
to  confiscation 
orders 
Council Framework Decision 
27 
2008/947/JHA 
November  2008  on 
the 
application of the principle of 
to 
mutual 
judgments 
probation 
and 
decisions  with  a  view  to  the 
probation 
of 
supervision 
alternative 
and 
measures 
sanctions 
Council Framework Decision 
2009/829/JHA of 23 October 
2009  on 
the  application, 
between  Member  States  of 
the  European  Union,  of  the 
mutual 
of 
principle 
recognition  to  decisions  on 
supervision  measures  as  an 
alternative 
provisional 
to 
detention 
Council Framework Decision 
30 
2009/948/JHA 
on 
November 
prevention  and  settlement  of 
exercise  of 
conflicts  of 
jurisdiction 
criminal 
in 
proceedings 

of 
2009 

recognition 

of 

Possible future application 

Possible future application 

Possible future application 

Possible future application 

Possible future application 

Possible future application 

European Protection Order    Directive  2011/99/EU  of  the 
European  Parliament  and  of 

Possible future application 

16 

 
the  Council  of  13  December 
the  European 
2011 
protection order 

on 

As  can  be  seen  from  the  table,  there  are  a  number  of  instruments  /  procedures  where  e-
CODEX could be used to digitalise the information exchange necessary for adequate judicial 
cooperation, where admissible in accordance with the procedural rules of the Member States. 
Section  6.2  explains  the  positive  impacts  this  could  have,  e.g.  in  terms  of  cost  savings  for 
businesses. As it has been evaluated as an adequate communication system for the judiciary 
and  formed  the  basis  for  the  eDelivery  building  block  within  CEF,  e-CODEX  has  the 
potential to become the default system  for online communication with and  between judicial 
authorities.  

Examples of more imminent forthcoming applications of e-CODEX include the extension of 
the  EIO/MLA  eEDES  system  to  enable  the  exchange  of  electronic  evidence  and  allow  for 
direct  electronic  communication  with  Internet  Service  Providers.  Another  example  are  the 
Regulations  on  service  of  documents  and  taking  of  evidence,  for  which  a  switch  to 
digitalisation and the use of electronic means of communications will save costs at the level 
of the individual proceedings (see below in section 7.2). If the e-CODEX system expires, the 
tailor-made communication system for communication in the judicial area would no longer be 
available. 

2.2.  The effects of the problems 

The absence of digital communication tools in the judicial area affects,  on the one hand the 
judicial authorities involved in cross-border judicial cooperation, and on the other hand legal 
practitioners,  SMEs  and  citizens wishing to submit claims  in  another country.  For  the latter 
group, the lack of easy accessible online tools for cross-border disputes may act as a deterrent 
to  claim  their  rights.  Many  small  and  medium  sized  enterprises  making  use  of  the  single 
market  face  difficulties  with  cross-border  debt  collection.  Similarly,  citizens  face  problems 
with goods purchased in another EU country. 

For  judicial  authorities,  the  non-  or  low  existence  of  online  communication  tools  for  cross-
border  communication  has  several  consequences  for  the  capacity  to  fight  cross-border 
criminality in an efficient way. Here are some examples: 

  Use of informal unsecure communication channels (e.g. personal e-mail, Skype…) to 
transmit  highly  sensitive  information,  for  instance  related  to  criminal  investigation 
procedures. 

  Risk  of  loss  (of  confidentiality)  of  documents  and  attachments  which  could  contain 
highly  sensitive  data,  or  tampering  thereof  –  with,  as  a  result,  the  risk  that  the 
documents could not be accepted as evidence. 

  Language barriers due to the  need to send documents  in  a language  accepted by the 
receiving  authority.  With  an  online  communication  tool,  an  authority  can  use  a 
predefined form (defined in the relevant EU legal act) in its own language and, before 
sending it, the static text of this form is automatically translated into the language of 
the receiving authority. 

17 

 
 
 

In most cases, no confirmation of receipt is sent by the responsible authorities of the 
receiving Member States49, and thus no clear indication of the person in charge (thus 
no  contact  details)  which  hampers  the  subsequent  communication  regarding  the 
request. 

The lack of interoperability between existing national systems has several negative effects for 
cross-border justice: 

  Low or no trust in terms of authentication and signature. 

  Lack of semantic interoperability between forms and data elaborated in one system by 

another system. 

  No guarantee for the authenticity and integrity of the documents.  

  Mutual  misunderstanding  of  the  execution  of  procedures  because  of  diverging  rules 
and traditions between the countries. Since there is no common IT system, no mutual 
understanding  of  the  procedure  through  business  process  modelling  has  been 
achieved.  Through  business  process  modelling  (as  has  been  done  in  the  different  e-
CODEX  pilots),  the  required  business  process  is  described  through  the  analysis  of 
actors,  their  roles  and  expected  output  of  each  actor’s  activity.  Concrete  example: 
thousands  of  cross-border  fines  related  to  road  offences  are  not  collected  due  to  the 
costs  and  difficulties  of  exchange  of  the  cases  between  countries,  and  the  lack  of 
digital communication tools contributes to this problem50. This does not only have a 
financial impact, but also an impact on the road safety in Europe, because drivers in 
many cases go unpunished for violating rules in another country. 

  Without  interoperable  systems,  incoming  requests  need  to  be  manually  entered  into 
the  national  case  management  system.  This  process  not  only  takes  time,  but  also 
involves  a  high  risk  of  human  error,  which  could  have  serious  consequences  for  the 
treatment of the request. 

2.3. How the problems will evolve 

The  consortium  of  Member  States  that  participated  in  the  development  of  the  system  is 
reluctant  to  continue  carrying  out  maintenance  functions  on  the  basis  of  EU  grants.  In  any 
event, such a consortium could not provide for the long-term operational management of the 
system, even if funding is ensured.  

Even  the  several  Member  States  who  currently  use  e-CODEX  in  production  are  likely  to 
withdraw  from  the  project  over  time  –  if  the  underlying  software  building  blocks  are  not 
maintained  and  adapted  to  required  technical  and  legal  changes  or  common  European  data 
formats  for  the  business  documents  (legal  forms)  of  the  different  legal  cross-border 
instruments  are  not  adapted  to  legal  changes  which  happen  quite  often.  The  positions 
expressed  by  the  Member  States,  in  the  roadmaps  adopted  in  Council  and  in  the  e-Justice 
Council  group,  clearly  indicate  that  continued  consortium-based  management  is  not  an 
acceptable option for the long-term. The aim for e-CODEX was from the very beginning to 
develop the system on the basis of an action grant co-financed by the Commission, and then 
hand over the results for permanent management to a stable organisation or institution. While 
several Member States are committed to e-CODEX and have engaged in pilots, they are also 

49  

50  

According to Article 16 of the Directive on the European Investigation Order, the executing authority 
has to send an acknowledgement of receipt to the issuing authority without delay. 
See below in section 6.2 and example of unpaid traffic offences in France. 

18 

 
 
                                                 
not prepared to coordinate and manage the system on a permanent basis, especially in view of 
potential future growth, even if they see its many benefits. 

It is clear that the absence of a long-term solution for e-CODEX will raise the cost of cross-
border cooperation within the European justice community, in particular since no up-to-date 
model system for electronic cross-border communication will be available. The time between 
finalising  the  drafting  of  a  European  legal  procedure  and  its  digital  implementation  in  all 
Member  States  will  be  longer,  if  a  common  and  accepted  ready-for-use  IT  solution  is  not 
available.  

2.4. Baseline scenario 

The e-CODEX system is maintained through action grants by a consortium of Member State 
authorities.  

If no sustainable solution is found for the operational management of e-CODEX system, and 
if  the  system  is  not  extended  to  support  additional  cross-border  legal  instruments,  then 
Member States  and  the  Commission  will lose their initial investment of  24 Million  EUR in 
the e-CODEX project.  

If there is no sustainable maintenance of the underlying software building blocks, it is highly 
likely that no additional Member States will connect to e-CODEX or invest in the adaptation 
of their national justice IT systems.  

Under these circumstances, a sustainable solution for the long-term operational management 
of  e-CODEX  needs  to  be  found  both  with  regards  to  its  governance  and  ensuring  the 
operational  management  and  further  development.  All  stakeholders  responding  to  the 
inception  impact  assessment  support  the  objective  of  ensuring  the  long-term  operational 
management  of  the  e-CODEX  system,  including  representatives  of  the  major  legal 
practitioner  organisations  –  the  Council  of  Bars  and  Law  Societies  of  Europe  (CCBE),  the 
European  Chamber  of  Bailiffs  (CEHJ),  the  International  Union  of  Judicial  Officers  (UIHJ) 
and the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ). 

In  the  absence  of  a  long-term  solution  for  e-CODEX,  there  will  be  no  maintenance  or 
evolution  of  the  e-CODEX  system.  This  would  lead  to  divergences  between  the  systems  in 
the Member States that currently apply e-CODEX, with eventually the result that domestic IT 
systems  will  no  longer  be  able  to  communicate  with  each  other.  Without  a  common  secure 
communication  system  for  cross-border  exchanges  between  judicial  authorities,  the  benefits 
of e-CODEX, such as allowing online submission of small claims or exchange of electronic 
evidence in criminal cases, could not be realised.  

If the e-CODEX system is not managed in a coordinated way, certain applications/pilots may 
continue,  but  the  systems  may  eventually  end  up  not  being  interoperable.  There  will  be  no 
common  system  that  can  be  adapted  to  serve  the  needs  of  different  judicial  procedures  and 
diverse national systems. If interoperability cannot be ensured, the overall costs for Member 
States will increase due to the need to develop individual IT solutions. 

Digital  transmission  e.g.  of  EPOs  and  small  claims  could  continue  between  the  countries 
having implemented e-CODEX, as long as the systems remain compatible with each other. In 
the longer term, these pilots are likely to be discontinued without coordinated maintenance of 
the e-CODEX system. 

2.5. Intervention logic 

Drivers 

19 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Problems 

Consequences 

Objectives 

the  e-
Maintenance  of 
CODEX 
through 
system 
grants  is  not  a  sustainable 
solution for the long term   

Lack  of  sustainable  solution 
for governance 

inefficiencies 
Risk  of 
cross-border 
in 
in 
communication 
criminal 
civil 
matters  due  to  expiry 
of e-CODEX 

and 

Evolving 
divergences 
between systems in MS that 
currently  use  the  e-CODEX 
system  will  lead  to  systems 
to 
no 
communicate  with  each 
other 

longer 

able 

inefficiencies 
Current 
cross-border 
in 
in 
communication 
criminal 
civil 
matters 
to 
narrow  use  of  e-
CODEX 

due 

and 

More  complex  cross-
border legal procedures 
leading 
restricted 
to 
capacity to  

General:  
Efficient functioning of 
a  common  area  of 
security and justice  

Fight 

- 
crime  

cross-border 

- Enforce civil claims 

Specific: 
- Prevent inefficiencies 
cross-border 
in 
communication 
by 
ensuring 
sustainable 
maintenance  of  the  e-
CODEX system  

Improve 

the 
and 
cross-

- 
efficiency 
resilience  of 
border 
communication 
by 
wider use of e-CODEX 

Figure 4: Intervention logic 

3.  WHY SHOULD THE EU ACT? 

Legal basis 

Since  the  e-CODEX  system  would  facilitate  judicial  cooperation  both  in  civil  and  criminal 
matters, the legal  basis for  the  system would be a combination of Article 81 and 82 TFEU. 
More specifically, the e-CODEX system would facilitate access to justice in civil matters in 
line  with  Article  81(2)(e).  In  criminal  matters,  Article  82(1)(d)  is  the  legal  basis  for  the 
Union's  right  to  act  in  the  field  of  judicial  cooperation  to  facilitate  cooperation  between 
judicial or equivalent authorities of the Member States in relation to proceedings in criminal 
matters and the enforcement of decisions. 

Subsidiarity 

A mechanism for the secure exchange of cross-border information in judicial proceedings is 
best  achieved  at  EU  level.  In  the  absence  of  EU  action,  there  is  a  risk  that  Member  States 
develop  national  systems  independently,  leading  to  a  lack  of  interoperability  between  the 
systems.  While  management  at  EU  level  entails  a  cost,  it  is  the  only  way  to  achieve  an 
interoperable system for cross-border communication between judicial authorities.  

e-CODEX offers an off-the-shelf solution which is easily extensible and adapted to different 
civil  and  criminal  judicial  procedures  (e.g.  European  Payment  Orders,  Small  Claims, 
exchange  of  electronic  evidence).  Connection  to  the  system  has  to  be  done  only  once  per 
Member State and can then potentially be used for all incoming electronic legal procedures. 
Having this system at EU level therefore leads to cost savings for the Member States.  

1.Risk of inefficiencies in cross-
border communication 
information excange in civil and 
criminal matters due to expiriy 
of e-CODEX 

In order to maintain and further implement e-CODEX, a governance function and permanent 
resource  allocation  are  needed  to  ensure  continuity  and  stable  know-how.  The  best  way  to 
achieve  this  would  be  to  ensure  operational  management  at  EU  level.  Uncoordinated 
management of the system by each Member State at national level would lead to inefficiency 

20 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
in resource utilisation and inconsistency, incompatibility and divergence between the different 
national systems. This will negatively affect interoperability. 

As demonstrated in the mapping of the digitalisation of justice systems, the data show that the 
state  of  digitalisation  of  the  judiciary  varies  considerably  between  the  Member  States. 
Consequently,  the  readiness  of  Member  States  to  integrate  a  system  for  secure  online 
exchange between judicial authorities  varies. So  far, 21 Member States have participated in 
the  development  of  the  e-CODEX  system  for  online  exchange,  while  only  several  Member 
States  have  installed  and  put  the  system  to  practical  use.  In  order  for  a  common 
communication system like e-CODEX to reach its full potential, its use should be extended to 
cover a majority or all Member States across the EU. Establishing e-CODEX as the tool for 
communication  in  the  justice  area  and  ensuring  its  operational  management  at  EU  level, 
would  allow  referring  to  the  e-CODEX  system  in  EU  legislation  regulating  specific  cross-
border judicial procedures, thereby ensuring that all Member States use it. 

Member  States  have  to  a  large  extent  already  developed  national  systems  for  secure 
communication  between  judicial  authorities.  However,  these  are  not  always  interoperable 
across borders. The advantage of the e-CODEX system lies in its ability to connect national 
systems with each other without there being a need to replace existing national systems. As 
described  above  in  section  1.2,  the  e-CODEX  "Connector"  software  allows  the  national 
backends  to  be  connected  via  a  standardised  Gateway  (eDelivery).  In  this  way,  the 
development of the e-CODEX solution respects the principle of subsidiarity by allowing the 
differences  between  the  national  systems  continue  to  exist,  while  ensuring  cross-border 
compatibility. 

4.  WHAT SHOULD BE ACHIEVED / OBJECTIVES 

General objectives: 

  Efficient functioning of a common area of security and justice  

Specific objectives: 

  Prevent  inefficiencies  in  cross-border  communication  by  ensuring  sustainable 

maintenance of the e-CODEX system. 

 

Improve efficiency of judicial procedures in cross-border communication by wider use 
of e-CODEX.  

5.  WHAT ARE THE VARIOUS OPTIONS TO ACHIEVE THE OBJECTIVES? 

5.1. Discarded options 

The following options have not been retained for further in-depth assessment: 

Creation  of  a  new  legal  entity:  In  general,  the  option  to  create  a  new  legal  entity  to  further 
manage e-CODEX was discarded on account of the disproportionally high efforts required to 
create such an entity compared to its (limited) mandate. This would apply also to the creation 
of  dedicated  Agency,  which  compared  to  the  relatively  limited  resources  needed  for  the 
management of e-CODEX would be disproportionate. 

Use  of  another  system  or  development  of  an  alternative  system:  This  option  was  discarded 
since  the  current  e-CODEX  solution  proved  to  be  very  effective  and  efficient  for  the 
procedures  for  which  it  is  already  used  (see  above  under  section  2.1.1  as  regards  the 
evaluation  of  the  e-CODEX  pilots).  Choosing  a  different  IT  system  for  secure  transmission 
will  turn  into  direct  loss  the  24  million  EUR  already  invested  in  creating  e-CODEX.  Also, 

21 

 
 
using  commercial  solutions  will  raise  issues  regarding  their  long  term  sustainability  and 
regarding data integrity, as the owner of the solution could in theory have access to the data 
transferred using its solution. Moreover, the solutions available in the market are not adapted 
to  the  specific  requirements  of  the  EU  judiciary,  as  opposed  to  e-CODEX,  which  has  been 
developed specifically for this sector. 

More  specifically,  one  possible  alternative  to  e-CODEX  is  TESTA  NG  (or  its  previous 
version,  s-TESTA).  The  TESTA  NG  network  is  the  EU's  own  private  network,  suited  for 
secure information exchange between European and Member States public administrations. It 
is  a  European  network  similar  to  the  Internet,  but  dedicated  to  inter-administrative 
requirements  and  providing  guaranteed  performance  levels  such  as  guaranteed  bandwidth, 
which is not the case for the general Internet. 

The  TESTA  NG  solution  is  not  a  suitable  replacement  for  e-CODEX  for  the  following 
reasons.  Firstly,  TESTA  NG  is  closed  to  non-public  administration  participants,  something 
that  e-CODEX  allows  (lawyer  bars,  bailiff  associations  and  service  and/or  data  providers). 
Secondly, e-CODEX offers further domain-specific functions that would be transferred to the 
entity  taking  over  the  management,  (e.g.  assessment  of  electronic  signatures,  provision  of 
multi-level evidence of delivery, establishment of data exchange standards) for which there is 
no  equivalent  in  TESTA  NG.  Thirdly,  e-CODEX  offers  by  default  encryption  of  the  data 
exchanged  between  partners  over  any  kind  of  network,  which  might  be  Internet  or  TESTA 
NG. TESTA NG offers a secure network over which data may either be encrypted or not. 

In addition, the very high security and availability guarantees offered by TESTA NG make it 
a very costly system to operate. To control this operational cost, its use should be restricted to 
those cases where very high security is objectively needed. Even in the more sensitive uses of 
e-CODEX  (such  as  exchange  of  e-evidence),  the  stakeholders  already  deemed  the  level  of 
security  offered  by  e-CODEX  as  sufficient  for  their  needs,  making  the  use  of  a  system 
providing higher security unnecessary.  

Another  alternative  tool  for  communication  between  authorities  is  the  Internal  Market 
Information  System  (IMI).  IMI  is  a  secure,  multilingual  online  tool,  facilitating  the 
exchange of information between public administrations across the EEA that are involved in 
the practical implementation of EU law. IMI was designed as a generic solution that could be 
adapted, with very little or no development effort, to support communication relating to other 
policy areas (in addition to its original scope, the Services Directive and the Recognition of 
Professional  Qualifications  Directive).  IMI  was  designed  as  a  system  for  communication 
between  human  users  –  whereas  e-CODEX  is  designed  as  a  system  to  system  interface 
without the need for human intervention to receive or send a message. The human interface is 
built into the back-end  applications which  can  automatically receive messages and  assign it 
automatically to either a new or an already existing court or prosecution case. 

The  main  reason  why  IMI  is  not  a  comparable  system  with  or  suitable  replacement  for  e-
CODEX  is  that  it  was  designed  to  operate  as  a  centralised  system,  hosted  by  the  European 
Commission.  e-CODEX  embodies  a  completely  different  philosophy,  a  decentralised  one, 
where  each  Member  State  operates  its  own  node  in  a  network  where  there  is  no  central 
element (such as e.g. a central server). Through this, the Member States retain full control of 
the  data  sent  and  received  by  the  node  and  can  also  leverage  all  the  data  available  in  its 
national systems. 

In  cases  such  as  the  exchange  of  e-evidence,  the  Members  States  expressed  clear  views 
against an approach where the data is stored centrally, e.g. in the data centre of the European 
Commission. 

22 

 
 
Management by  an EU Member State or a new  consortium of Member States: As indicated 
above  in  section  2.1.1,  the  Member  States  consortium  have  clearly  indicated  that  continued 
management of the e-CODEX system financed by action grants is not a sustainable solution 
for the long-term.  Furthermore, if the decision was taken to finance e-CODEX fully with EU 
grants, it would be required to set up the e-CODEX consortium as a permanent legal entity at 
national level in order for it to be able to receive an operational grant. Indeed, the handover to 
a new group of Member States does not offer sufficient guarantee of continuity of operations 
over time. On the other hand, it is also unclear why a Member State or a group of them would 
accept to bear the burden of running such activities, which go beyond the interest of the group 
of the Member States involved. In addition, long-term sustainability financed with EU grants 
can  lead  to  gaps  in  the  continuation  of  the  needed  activities  and  might  lead  some  Member 
States to not pick up the e-CODEX solution for fear of lack of support. 

These are significant disadvantages with management by Member States, such as the need for 
continued funding and the uncertainty of obtaining Member State commitment for the long-
term.  Moreover,  in  terms  of  governance,  Member  State  management  would  have  the 
inconvenience of not ensuring proper involvement of the EU level, which is problematic for a 
system developed to be used for various cross-border EU procedures. 

5.2. Option 1: Baseline scenario 

Uncoordinated maintenance of the e-CODEX system means that there will be no sustainable 
common system for secure cross-border communication in the justice area. See further details 
in section 2.4. 

5.3. Option 2: Non-regulatory option – Management by the Commission 

In this option the Commission assumes the responsibility for the operational management of 
the e-CODEX system. This could be done either by DG Justice and Consumers or DG DIGIT.  

The  management  tasks  relating  to  e-CODEX  that  the  Commission  would  take  over  would 
include  technical  maintenance  and  further  development  of  the  software  components,  data 
standards and security specifications that are part of the system, and in particular of: 

  Web  presence  for  the  e-CODEX  software  modules,  XML  Schema  Definitions 
(XSDs),  related  specifications  and  documentation,  FAQ,  issue-tracking  database, 
support sections, etc. 

  PModes and certificate trust stores, as well as coordination and distribution of these 

  Bug  fixing  of  the  e-CODEX  software  modules  and  managing  the  corresponding 

software repository 

  Business process models 

  Data models, data repository and XSDs 

  Project technical documentation 

  Central testing capabilities 

  Technical support for installation and configuration issues 

The  Commission  would  also  be  involved  in  the  governance  and  coordination  of  e-CODEX 
and  e-CODEX-related  activities.    Section  6.2  under  “cost-effectiveness”  sets  out  in  more 
detail the tasks to be carried out.  

23 

 
 
5.4. Option 3: Regulatory option – Management by an existing EU Agency 

The  task  of  managing  e-CODEX  could  be  given  to  an  EU  Agency.  The  management  tasks 
would be essentially the same as for Option 2. However, some tasks relating to relations with 
stakeholders  and  identification  of  business  for  new  implementations  of  e-CODEX  would 
remain with the Commission, as further developed in section 6.2. 

Transfer of e-CODEX to an Agency would require the adoption of a legal act, which would 
establish and define e-CODEX, clarify the role of the Agency in the operational management, 
and  regulate  governance  issues  such  as  Member  State  representation  in  the  Management 
Board of the Agency  and in  its other  governance bodies. Corresponding adjustments would 
have  to  be  made  to  the  legal  basis  of  the  Agency,  notably  regarding  the  creation  of  an 
Advisory Group for e-CODEX and a Programme Management Board. The legal act would be 
limited to providing a legal basis for the management of e-CODEX; it would on its own not 
mandate  the  use  of  e-CODEX  for  specific  legal  procedures.  Decisions  on  the  use  of  e-
CODEX for a specific procedure would have to be taken separately, e.g. through a revision of 
the relevant legal basis. 

The scope of the legal act would cover judicial cooperation in the area of civil and criminal 
law,  as  well  as  European  procedures  such  as  for  example  the  European  Small  Claims 
Procedure,  the  European  Payment  Order  Procedure  or  the  European  Account  Preservation 
Order.  A  list  of  the  instruments  on  judicial  cooperation  and  European  procedures 
corresponding to the list in section 2.1.2 would be provided in an annex to the legal act. 

In  order  to  allow  for  the  adoption  of  the  legal  act  by  the  Council  and  the  Parliament,  and 
ensure an adequate handover between the consortium and the Agency, this option should be 
combined with an interim prolongation of the current Member State consortium for the period 
between 2021 and the handover to the new entity managing the e-CODEX system. 

6.  WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS OF THE DIFFERENT POLICY OPTIONS AND WHO WILL BE 

AFFECTED? 

The three policy options are discussed and measured against the following criteria: 

  Effectiveness: the extent to which the measure fulfils the objectives of the proposal; 

  Technical and operational feasibility 

  Legal feasibility 

  Cost- effectiveness 

 

 

Impact on SMEs, competitiveness and competition 

Impact on the Digital Single Market 

  Social impacts 

  Fundamental rights 

  Environmental impacts 

 

Impact on third countries 

6.1. Option 1: Baseline scenario 

Uncoordinated maintenance of e-CODEX would mean that a common secure communication 
tool  for  the  EU  judiciary  could  no  longer  be  maintained.  See  further  section  2  –  Problem 
definition. 

24 

 
 
6.2. Common impacts of policy options 2-3 

Policy  options  2-3  cover  different  scenarios  aiming  at  ensuring  a  stable  operation  of  the  e-
CODEX system and its future use for legal procedures. They have in common a number of 
potential positive impacts resulting from the use of a secure digital system for communication 
to  and  between  judicial  authorities.  It  should  be  emphasised  on  the  one  hand  that  these 
positive impacts are the result of the introduction of a common digital system as such – which 
could be  e-CODEX or another system  – and on  the other hand that there may remain legal 
constraints  to  using  digital  communication  tools  in  the  judicial  area,  which  will  not  be 
removed solely because of the transfer of e-CODEX to a permanent entity. Nevertheless, if e-
CODEX  is  managed  by  an  EU  entity,  its  concrete  implementation  for  specific  legal 
procedures will necessitate the removal of such legal obstacles. 

The baseline costs of maintaining the system are, likewise, common to policy options 2-3 and 
expressed  in  Full  Time  Equivalents  (FTEs).  The  coordination  and/or  overhead  costs  differ 
between  the  options.  This  variation  is  however  difficult  to  assess  in  a  quantifiable  way. 
Therefore, for the purpose of this analysis, it was considered not to be a differentiating factor.  

  Impact on SMEs, competitiveness and competition 

e-CODEX would have indirect positive economic impact on European businesses of all sizes 
as it simplifies and speeds up cross border judicial procedures and judicial cooperation, which 
in itself is of benefit to companies.  

As  an  example  of  the  positive  economic  impact  of  digital  communication  in  judicial 
procedures  in  particular  for  SMEs,  it  is  useful  to  mention  the  European  Small  Claims 
Procedure (ESCP). The replacement of postal services with digital communication generates 
potential savings, in terms of saved postage costs but more significantly by reducing the time 
for the procedure. Even though postal service is already cheaper than other methods of service 
used  in  ordinary  proceedings  in  the  Member  States,  such  as  bailiffs,  it  still  generates 
comparably  more  costs  and  delays  than  the  use  of  electronic  service.  If  postal  costs  are 
estimated at between €2.78 and €7 for a given case51, the total postal cost would amount to 
between €8 to €21 per case. In terms of delay in the procedure, each service/communication 
by post takes between 1 and 3 days, or for the whole procedure, between 3 to 9 days. As the 
average length of the proceedings is between 3 and 6 months, this constitutes a non-negligible 
part of the process.  

On  average,  if  electronic  communication  with  acknowledgment  of  receipt  at  a  cost  of  €1 
would be used instead of post, and only for the documents which need to be served according 
to the Regulation and not for all communications between the parties and the courts, a party is 
expected to save between €5 to €18 and 3 to 9 days. In practice however, because many more 
communications are effected by post, the costs to the parties are higher. 

Similar  cost  savings  as  for  small  claims  could  also  be  realised  in  other  procedures  using  e-
CODEX.  For  example,  for  EPOs,  for  which  e-CODEX  provides  the  possibility  for 
companies,  and  in  particular  SMEs,  to  enforce  outstanding  payment  claims  across  borders. 
The use of e-CODEX  could therefore  lead to  significant reduction of administrative burden 
for  SMEs.  Annex  6  sets  out  the  potential  savings  for  EPOs  on  the  assumption  that 
digitalisation of the procedure would lead to a reduction of postal costs of €8 to €21per case 
as well as a shortening of the procedure of 3-9 days. Using the available data on number of 

51  

Impact  assessment  accompanying  the  proposal  for  a  Regulation  amending  Regulation  (EC)  No 
861/2007 
Procedure 
European 
(http://ec.europa.eu/justice/civil/files/com_2013_794_en.pdf). 

establishing 

Claims 

Small 

a 

25 

 
                                                 
payment  orders  in  the  EU  and  length  of  proceedings 52 ,  overall  the  length  of  EPO 
proceedings  would  be  reduced  yearly  between  35.301  and  127.836  days.    The  total 
savings  on  postage  would  amount  to  between  €  94.136  and  €298.284  for  all  the  EPO 
cases. 

Moreover,  digitalisation  through  a  system  like  e-CODEX  could  achieve  significant  savings 
also in the area of service of documents by an improved administration of justice. If there was 
increased transparency of or better access to the information on the whereabouts of natural or 
legal persons, a large amount of cases could be avoided in which the defendant is currently 
notified  of  the  proceedings  against  him/her  by  a  fictitious  method  of  service  of  documents 
(such  as  publication  in  a  gazette).  In  addition,  as  a  consequence  of  better,  faster  and  more 
reliable  judicial  assistance  in  this  field,  the  proceedings  will  be  carried  out  and  concluded 
faster  with  greater  legal  certainty  and  less  grounds  for  challenges  and  problems  at  the  later 
stage of enforcement (e.g. because deficient service is invoked as a ground of refusal). This 
will result in efficiency gains translating into cost savings both for parties and Member States. 

As  regards  compliance  costs  /  administrative  burden,  there  will  be  no  additional  costs  for 
SMEs  (or  other  operators)  following  the  implementation  of  e-CODEX  for  a  specific  legal 
procedure. The use of e-CODEX will simply entail filling in an online form as laid down in 
the applicable legal act to submit or respond to a claim, rather than a paper form. 

Result of the SME test: 

(1) Identification of affected businesses;  

- All businesses and SMEs that could potentially engage in cross-border legal proceedings are 
affected by the use of digital means of communication in the judiciary, e.g. e-CODEX 

(2) Consultation of SME stakeholders; 

-  SME  stakeholders  have  been  consulted  together  with  the  general  public  through  the 
inception impact assessment53 

(3) Measurement of the impact on SMEs; 

-  Examples  of  potential  cost  savings  for  SMEs  as  a  result  of  implementation  of  digital 
communication tools are indicated above. There is no negative economic impact on SMEs 

(4) Assessment of alternative mechanisms and mitigating measures. 

-  As  there  is  no  negative  impact  on  SMEs,  there  is  no  need  for  alternative  mechanisms  or 
mitigating measures. 

  Impact on the Digital Single Market 

By  improving  the  efficiency  of  cross-border  proceedings  through  increased  use  of  digital 
communication tools, e-CODEX would contribute to improving the functioning of the Digital 
Single Market.   

Ensuring  permanent  management  of  e-CODEX  (which  uses  the  CEF  building  blocks 
eDelivery  and  e-Signature,  see  above  section  1.1)  would  ensure  a  spill-over  effect:  the 
Member States will use e-CODEX for cross-border procedures because it is a mature system 
supported in the long term.  For reasons of interoperability and availability of support they are 

52  

53  

Report on the application of Regulation (EC) 1896/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council 
Procedure  
Payment 
creating 
(https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/rep/1/2015/EN/1-2015-495-EN-F1-1.PDF). 
No response was however received from SME stakeholders. 

European 

Order 

for 

a 

26 

 
                                                 
also  likely  to  use  the  same  solution  nationally.  This  supports  the  gradual  creation  of  the 
Digital Single Market. 

  Social impacts / impact on public authorities 

By implementing European cross-border procedures for civil matters in an electronic way, a 
permanent e-CODEX would provide an easy access to justice for European citizens. 

Criminal proceedings are speeded up due to a full electronic exchange of requests by avoiding 
undue  delays,  which  are  more  likely  in  traditional  ways  of  transmission.  As  a  result, 
implementing e-CODEX could have a positive impact on the fight against cross-border crime. 

There is also a positive impact of the use of e-CODEX to help enforce financial penalties such 
as traffic offences. A high number of traffic offences are committed by foreign nationals – for 
example in Austria, around 4 million road traffic offences (speeding) are detected per year, of 
which 20%  to 25%  are  committed by foreign drivers54. Moreover, in France, 143  054 fines 
imposed on foreign residents remain unpaid each year. With an average fine of 280 EUR, this 
amounts to over 40 million euros of unpaid fines to be enforced by court proceedings55. If we 
assume  that  electronic  procedures  could  increase  the  efficiency  of  cross-border  proceedings 
by  20  %,  an  additional  8  million  euros  could  be  enforced  in  France  every  year.  A  full 
implementation  of  e-CODEX  across  the  EU  would  considerably  facilitate  the  recovery  of 
these fines and more effective enforcement would also have a positive effect on the abidance 
by traffic rules across Europe. 

Positive  impact  can  also  be  expected  on  the  efficiency  of  national  courts.  In  an  evaluation 
carried  out  by  the  e-CODEX  consortium,  it  was  estimated  that  the  implementation  of  e-
CODEX in Germany has led to a time saving of 5-10 minutes to process a case because the 
data no longer needs to be manually entered into the case management system56. 

  Fundamental rights 

The possibilities created by the e-CODEX electronic system would have a positive impact on 
the ability to exercise the right to an effective judicial remedy, and are therefore in conformity 
with Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights ´Right to an effective remedy and to a 
fair  trial´  since  electronic  communication  and  document  transmission  enhances  and  reduces 
the  time  of  the  court  proceedings.  Stakeholders  have  pointed  out  that  Article  47  also 
guarantees  the  right  to  an  impartial  and  independent  tribunal,  and  that  in  order  be  in 
conformity  with  that  Article,  future  governance  and  coordination  of  e-CODEX  and  e-
CODEX-related activities need to ensure that the independence of the judiciary is guaranteed. 

Since e-CODEX is a decentralised system, there will be no data storage or data processing by 
the entity entrusted with the maintenance of the e-CODEX software components. The entities 
operating e-CODEX access  points  are solely responsible for the personal data transiting via 
their access points. Depending on whether an access point is operated by Union institutions, 
bodies,  offices  and  agencies  or  other  entities,  either  Regulation  (EU)  2018/1725 57 or  the 
General Data Protection Regulation will apply respectively. 

54  
55  
56  
57  

Data obtained from the AT Ministry of Interior. 
Data on AFM fines the FR fine collecting agency. 
e-CODEX D3.5/D3.7/D3.8 WP3 Final Report 
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32018R1725 

27 

 
 
 
 
                                                 
The Commission or the Agency entrusted with the operational management of the e-CODEX 
system when undertaking further technical evolutions of software products, should implement 
the  principles  of  security  by  design  and  data  protection  by  design  and  by  default,  in 
accordance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council.  

Options 2-3 are therefore neutral from a data protection point of view.  

  Environmental impacts  

e-CODEX is a paperless system and saves therefore natural resources by reducing the use of 
paper, ink and postal delivery, to the extent that the use of digital communication is permitted 
by the relevant instrument and national law. 

  Cost effectiveness 

The  following  e-CODEX  product  is  proposed  (all  values  are  expressed  as  FTEs).  The  third 
column  displays  the  resources  necessary  strictly  for  the  maintenance  of  the  existing  e-
CODEX  with  regard  to  its  existing  business  uses.  The  fourth  column  displays  resources  in 
addition  to  the  ones  for  maintenance  (which  continue  to  be  necessary)  needed  in  case 
extensions of the system are envisaged, whether technology- or business-driven. 

Position 

Personnel 
Type 

Maintenanc
e e-CODEX 
(FTE) 

Extending e-
CODEX 
(FTE) 

Indicative annual salary58 
(per 1 FTE) 

Legal Officer 

Policy Officer 

Temporary 
Agent 

Temporary 
Agent 

HR / Financial and 
budget / Reporting 

Contract 
Agent 

Stakeholder/busin
ess coordinator59 

Contract 
Agent 

Project manager 

Contract 
Agent 

0.25 

0.75 

€150,000 

0.5 

0.5 

€150,000 

0.75 

0.25 

€80,000 

0.75 

0.25 

€80,000 

0.5 

0.5 

€80,000 

58  

59  

Rates  for  internal  staff  based  on  BUDGWEB  Legislative  Financial  Statement  prices  for  2020.  For 
external staff the DIGIT XM framework contract was used as reference. 
This profile is also in charge of organising the various meetings  with participants and stakeholders in 
the context of the Advisory Group and the Programme Management Board meetings. 

28 

 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
Application/Enter
prise architect 

External 
provider 

Business analyst / 
Data modeller 

External 
provider 

ICT Security 
Manager / 
Infrastructure 
System Engineer 

Support Manager  

Service desk 
Agent  / User 
Documentation 
and Training 

External 
provider 

External 
provider 

External 
provider 

0.25 

0.75 

€143,000 

0.25 

0.75 

€111,000 

0.5 

0.5 

€91,000 

0.75 

0.25 

€105,000 

0.75 

0.25 

€73,000 

Quality Assurance 
Manager 

External 
provider 

Application 
developer 

External 
provider 

0.5 

0.5 

0.5 

1.5 

€111,000 

€92,000 

TOTAL 

6.25 

6.75 

The  total  amount  of  required  human  resources  would  therefore  amount  to  13  FTEs.  In 
addition to costs related to human resources, there are also: 

  costs of travel and daily subsistence for organising (for one representative from each 
Member State at an estimated cost of €21,000 / meeting) approximately 15 meetings 
per year 

  mission  costs  (estimated  at  €700  /  mission)  for  personnel  to  attend  meetings  in 
Brussels and make presentations elsewhere (estimated at 4 missions / year in the first 
year and 8 missions / year thereafter) and for  

  costs  for  hardware  and  software  products,  estimated  at  €50,000  initial  costs  and 

€10,000 yearly maintenance costs; 

In  all  cases,  the  Commission  will  also  require  one  additional  FTE  (estimated  at  €150,000  / 
year60) to be involved in the policy governance of the work, as well as in the preparation of 
the necessary implementing acts mandated by the Regulation. This entails mission costs - to 
attend meetings (estimated at average of 10 missions / year). 

The total indicative costs for the period 2023-2027, based on the estimations above, amount 

60  

Per BUDGWEB rates for 2020. 

29 

 
 
 
                                                 
to approximately 10 million EUR. 

As regards the costs for Member States implementing e-CODEX, it can be considered that e-
CODEX is also cost-effective. A Member State: 

  needs to set up the  gateway/connector to connect to their national system only once. 
Besides  the  usual  maintenance  costs,  and  additional  costs  resulting  from  changes  in 
the national system, no further investments are required for connectivity; 

  needs only  to follow  a described  and proven method to achieve digital  support for a 
cross-border legal procedure. In most cases a Member State will only have to realize 
the  mapping  between  the  national  solution  and  e-CODEX  as  the  work  for  several 
cross-border  legal  procedures  will  have  been  done  jointly  by  the  experts  of  several 
Member States; 

 

is  assured  of  the  continuity  of  its  investments  in  IT  solutions.  e-CODEX  seeks  to 
connect  existing  national solutions instead of forcing Member  States to install  ‘alien 
solutions’ with all sorts of IT management and maintenance implications.  

The cost for Member States of installing e-CODEX in the Member States could be estimated 
to a maximum of 80-100 person-days (for further details see Annex 5). 

  Impact on third countries 

e-CODEX, being a secure system for communication in the judicial area, has the potential to 
be used also in communications between European judicial authorities and authorities in third 
countries.  The  iSupport  system  developed  by  the  Hague  Conference  has  put  in  place  an 
electronic case management and secure communication system, based on e-CODEX, for the 
cross-border recovery of maintenance obligations under the EU 2009 Maintenance Regulation 
and the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention.  Portugal and the State of California (USA) 
have  been  using  it  since  the  autumn  of  2016  and  extension  to  other  States  is  ongoing.  The 
project was partly financed by an EU grant and supported by a number of Member States61. 
Non-EU  members  of  the  Hague  Conference  interested  in  using  the  system  include  Brazil, 
Norway, Switzerland and the USA. 

The third countries, international organisations or other non-governmental stakeholders using 
e-CODEX would not be members of the governance bodies tasked with the management or 
maintenance  of  the  system.  Formal  membership  of  such  bodies  would  be  reserved  for  EU 
institutions  and  Member  State  authorities.  Nevertheless,  the  governance  structure  for  e-
CODEX should involve non-governmental stakeholders at different levels. In any event, the 
impact on third countries / institutions would be limited to the need to obtain updates of the e-
CODEX system from the managing entity (Agency or Commission) rather than as currently 
from the e-CODEX consortium.  

6.3. Option 2: Non-regulatory option – Management by the Commission 

  Effectiveness 

While  the  Commission  is  currently  managing  some  large-scale  IT  systems  (e.g.  DG 
TAXUD), the current trend is to externalise such systems (DG TAXUD has for instance been 
invited  by  the  Council  to  identify  a  permanent  future  structure  for  the  management  of  its 
systems). This is the approach taken with regard to the existing large-scale IT systems in the 

61  

Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy. 

30 

 
 
 
                                                 
area of Justice and Home Affairs (Eurodac, the Schengen Information System (SIS II) and the 
Visa Information System (VIS)), which have been entrusted to the European Agency for the 
operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice 
(eu-LISA). Recently, eu-LISA been tasked with the development and future management of a 
number of new systems in the area of home affairs, namely the Entry/Exit System (EES), the 
European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) and the European Criminal 
Records  Information  System  for  third-country  nationals  (ECRIS-TCN)  If  nevertheless  the 
Commission would be given this task, in practice - aside from the operational resources that 
could  be  provided  from  operational  credits  –  establishment  plan  posts  would  be  needed  for 
the management of the system.  

One crucial  element  of  the functioning of e-CODEX is the  involvement of the stakeholders 
including  Member  States  in  the  governance  of  the  system.  This  will  ensure  that  the 
subsequent development of the system will cater for the needs of the Member States using it. 
A particular aspect of Member State involvement relates to the need to ensure that the system 
does  not  interfere  with  functioning  of  national  judiciaries.  Member  States  have  repeatedly 
underlined the necessity that impact on the independent position of the judiciary is taken into 
account  when  the  governance  framework  for  e-CODEX  is  established 62 .  The  need  to 
guarantee the independence of the judiciary when finding a permanent solution for e-CODEX 
has also been underlined by the European Network for the Councils of the Judiciary (ENCJ) 
in  their  response  to  the  inception  impact  assessment63.  The  Council  Working  Party  on  e-
Justice has also raised the issue of the independence of the judiciary on numerous occasions, 
most  recently  in  September  2020,  and  considers  that  the  governance  framework  for  e-
CODEX needs to take this into account, also with regard to the involvement of stakeholders64.  

The  use  of  e-CODEX  may  have  considerable  influence  on  the  judicial  administrations,  but 
also a significant impact on the judiciary by changing the working processes substantially. In 
order to meet these concerns, the Member States themselves should have the opportunity to 
provide  input  to  the  management  of  the  e-CODEX  system.  An  example  that  could  be 
mentioned is the proceedings in cases of urgency. There could be different regulations in the 
Member States on how to deal with summary judicial proceedings.  It could be necessary to 
have the possibility to use the e-CODEX system 24 hours 7 days a week and not only during 
the  regular  working  hours  from  Mondays  to  Fridays.  If  this  requirement  is  not  met  by  the 
organisation in charge of e-CODEX, it could adversely affect the functioning of the judiciary, 
because  the  judge  would  not  be  able  to  act  appropriately.  This  shows  the  importance  of 
ensuring  the  possibility  for  representatives  of  the  national  judiciaries  to  be  involved  in  the 
decision-making processes concerning the e-CODEX system. 

An  assessment  of  the  possible  options  to  maintain  e-CODEX  has  been  carried  out  by  an 
independent accountancy firm, Deloitte, as author of a study ordered by DG CNECT on the 
sustainability of the Digital Service Infrastructures (DSI), included in the Connecting Europe 
Facility  (CEF).  Deloitte  specifically  assessed  the  options  for  sustainability  of  the  e-Justice 
DSI  which  includes  e-CODEX  as  an  important  element.  The  assessment  in  the  study 
regarding the sustainability of the e-Justice DSI is therefore relevant also for the sustainability 
of e-CODEX. The assessment was done on the basis of four criteria: governance, operations, 
financing  and  architecture.  In  terms  of  governance,  the  study  found  that  the  Commission's 
organisational  structure  may  not  be  flexible  enough  to  accommodate  new  needs  emerging 

62  

63  
64  

Roadmap on e-CODEX adopted by JHA Council on 8-9 December 2016 point 6 (c) - 
http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-14465-2016-INIT/en/pdf. 
See Annex 2. 
Meeting of the e-Justice Council Working Party on 8 September 2020. 

31 

 
                                                 
 
from  the  community  of  users  of  e-CODEX.  The  e-CODEX  Community  may  find  it  more 
difficult to raise emerging issues with the Commission compared to other structures such as a 
consortium of Member States or an Agency65. 

  Technical and operational feasibility 

Overall, management by the Commission is a feasible option from a technical and operational 
point of view. Indeed, DG DIGIT is already and will remain involved in maintaining the part 
of  e-CODEX  that  has  become  the  CEF  eDelivery  building  block.  It  would  therefore  be 
theoretically  possible  to  extend  this  management  to  the  entire  e-CODEX  system.  This  may 
however encounter some difficulty since the full e-CODEX solution is specific to the justice 
sector, whereas DIGIT focuses its work largely on cross-sector initiatives. 

Moreover,  the  development  or  uptake  of  a  cross  border  legal  procedure  as  a  use  case  to  be 
supported  by  e-CODEX  quite  often  starts  on  an  ad-hoc  basis.  This  results  from  the  ‘needs 
based’ approach of the legal domain towards digital support for their operations. The need for 
digital  support  is  experienced  as  imminent  by  the  professionals,  mostly  seconded  by  their 
hierarchy.  For  example,  the  use  case  on  digitalising  the  Mutual  Legal  Assistance  procedure 
(predecessor  of  the  European  Investigation  Order  and  the  e-Evidence  project)  started  this 
way.  This  approach  requires  a  flexible  organisation  that  is  fit  to  react  to  such  unforeseen 
prioritised demands not listed in policy programmes of the Commission. 

  Legal feasibility 

There are no legal obstacles to management by the Commission. 

  Cost-effectiveness 

The estimation of  costs  detailed above in section  6.2 is  valid  for the  option of Commission 
management. 

6.4. Option 3: Regulatory option – Management by an existing EU Agency 

  Effectiveness 

Handing  over  the  management  of  e-CODEX  to  an  agency  would  be  an  effective  way  of 
ensuring the sustainability of the system for the following reasons: 

  The  management  structure  of  an  agency  is  appropriate  for  the  task  of  managing  an  IT 

system in the justice area such as e-CODEX; 

  Operational management for a longer period of time can be planned and staffed to create 

stability. 

An agency can count on continuous financing; it has the expertise to hire the proper resources 
and consolidate the necessary know-how. Engagement of such an agency would achieve the 
best  possible  return  on  the  investment  for  e-CODEX.  Proper  management  also  ensures  the 
broad and increasing usage of the e-CODEX solution by the Member States. 

Furthermore, an agency can also ensure by its organisation to include and serve all Member 
States appropriately. The management board of the agency can represent all Member  States 

65  

http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/4374d088-c8ee-11e7-9b01-01aa75ed71a1.0001.01/DOC_1 

32 

 
 
 
                                                 
and their interests and can also ensure that the interests of national judiciaries are duly taken 
into account. Some Member States, which support this approach from the beginning but are 
not  using  the  e-CODEX  system  yet,  could  decide  to  join  the  (some  of)  the  supported  use 
cases. 

An EU regulatory agency would also be able to react to evolving needs, since its governance 
procedures allow rapid assimilation of needs emerging from different communities, including 
from  the  Member  States  and  from  users  of  e-CODEX66.  An  agency  would  therefore  be  a 
flexible  solution,  which  would  be  well-suited  to  support  future  extensions  of  the  system  to 
new use cases or procedures. 

Entrusting  the  management  of  e-CODEX  to  an  agency  by  establishing  a  legal  basis  for  the 
system  would  also  be  an  effective  way  to  increase  the  uptake  of  e-CODEX  among  the 
Member States. Providing the  system with a legal basis, would allow making reference to it 
as  the  communication  tool    in  future  legislative  initiatives.  Moreover,  the  expectations  of  a 
sustainable  operational  management  in  the  future  by  itself  would  lead  to  an  increase  in 
uptake,  as  evidenced  by  the  planned  deployment  by  Member  States  in  the  context  of  the 
preparations for the platform for exchange of electronic evidence (eEDES). 

Among the 11 respondents to the inception impact assessment, four expressed views on the 
entity  most  appropriate  to  manage  e-CODEX,  and  all  of  those  preferred  to  give  the 
responsibility to an agency. No respondent favoured another solution for the sustainability of 
e-CODEX. 

  Technical and operational feasibility 

Considering  the  strong  need  to  ensure  continuity  in  the  operational  management  of  the  e-
CODEX system, the EU regulatory agency appears to be a particularly good option. In fact, 
an  EU  regulatory  agency  can  provide  stability  and  support  to  the  operational  management 
activities  for  an  indefinite  period.  Moreover,  this  solution  is  perfectly  able  to  attract  the 
necessary human resources and scale up and down the activities as needed.  

  Legal feasibility 

A  legal  act  would  be  required  to  transfer  the  management  of  e-CODEX  to  an  agency.  In 
addition,  the  legal  basis  or  mandate  for  that  Agency  would  need  to  be  amended  in  order  to 
entrust e-CODEX to that agency.  

This legal act would establish and define e-CODEX as well as the list of tasks relating to e-
CODEX that the agency would have to carry out. It would modify the mandate of the relevant 
agency in the following way: 

 

the agency should be mandated to adopt reports on the technical functioning and use 
of the e-CODEX system 

  as regards the Management Board, there should be a requirement that decisions do not 

interfere with the proper functioning of the judiciary 

66 

Deloitte 
01aa75ed71a1.0001.01/DOC_1. 

Study, 

http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/4374d088-c8ee-11e7-9b01-

33 

 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
  an Advisory Group on e-CODEX should be created as well as any other governance 
related  bodies  that  could  facilitate  the  handover  of  the  e-CODEX  system  to  the 
relevant agency and the subsequent operational management of the system. 

  Choice of appropriate agency 

Following the Council conclusions and the Council's own assessment, the e-Justice Working 
Party made contacts with three different agencies: eu-LISA, INEA and ENISA.  

The  criteria  applied  for  the  identification  of  the  appropriate  agency  considered  both 
governance and technical aspects.   

The  agency  chosen  for  the  governance  of  e-CODEX  must  have  a  clear  mandate,  given  the 
importance of the independent nature of the solution/s and the services required. The mandate 
must ensure the legal feasibility of the agency solution and be funded. 

The  agency  must  be  able  to  operate  for  a  minimum  period  of  7  to  10  years  to  provide  an 
efficient and effective long-term solution. This minimum period will bring continuity for the 
services offered. 

With  regard  to  the  technical  aspects,  the  agency  will  need  to  meet  various  requirements, 
including  willingness  to  maintain  and  further  develop  the  components  of  the  e-CODEX 
system. 

The agency should be able to manage a diverse community of users. This is due to the fact 
that  the  e-CODEX  project  covers  use  cases  from  different  domains  and  with  different 
stakeholders.  The  agency  should  be  able  to  manage  relations  with  entities  operating  e-
CODEX  access  points,  i.e.  mainly  Member  State  authorities.  These  could  be  Ministries  of 
Justice,  courts,  prosecutors  or  similar.  It  could  also  be  organisations  such  as  national  bar 
associations.  

The agency should already have the necessary expertise to hire the resources needed for the 
operational management of e-CODEX. 

As  regards  INEA  (Innovation  and  Networks  Executive  Agency),  it  is  an  executive  agency 
tasked with the implementation of EU financial programmes, such as the Connecting Europe 
Facility (CEF). This agency does therefore not have any experience in managing large-scale 
European  IT  systems.  ENISA  (European  Union  Agency  for  Network  and  Information 
Security),  on  the  other  hand,  is  an  agency  working  in  the  field  of  cybersecurity,  providing 
recommendations  on  cybersecurity  and  supporting  policy  development  and  in  this  field. 
ENISA has therefore also no relevant experience in managing large-scale IT systems. 

eu-LISA, however, fits well the requirements for ensuring the management of e-CODEX. The 
mandate of eu-LISA, as defined by Regulation (EU) 2018/172667, clearly indicates that it is 
an agency "for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, 
security  and  justice"  (see  Article  1).  Since  its  mandate  explicitly  mentions  that  the 
management  of  IT  systems  in  the  justice  area,  eu-LISA  is  best  placed  among  existing 
agencies to take over the role of management of e-CODEX. In fact, eu-LISA already manages 
ECRIS, which is a decentralised justice system. 

From the discussions between the e-CODEX consortium  of Member States and  eu-LISA, it 
emerged clearly that eu-LISA has the operational capacity and know-how required to manage 

67  

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02018R1726-20190611 

34 

 
 
 
                                                 
a  complex  large-scale  IT  system  like  e-CODEX.  In  fact,  while  eu-LISA  has  until  recently 
been entrusted with the management of centralised large-scale IT-systems, it is fully capable 
to assume the responsibility for a decentralised communication infrastructures  like ECRIS or 
e-CODEX.  The  evaluation  carried  out  by  the  Commission  of  eu-LISA's  operational 
management of the systems currently within its mandate concluded that  the Agency has the 
to  communication 
technical  competence  and  capacity 
infrastructure68.  

to  deal  with 

tasks  relating 

eu-LISA has recently been entrusted the development and future management of a number of 
new systems in the area of home affairs, namely the Entry/Exit System (EES), the European 
Travel  Information  and  Authorisation  System  (ETIAS)  and  the  European  Criminal  Records 
Information  System  for  third-country  nationals  (ECRIS-TCN).  While  these  additional  tasks 
for eu-LISA required substantial additional resources, it would be a more moderate effort to 
takeover  e-CODEX,  as  it  would  require  a  limited  amount  of  resources  as  per  the  cost 
calculations of the present impact assessment, for the period between 2023 and 2027. 

e-CODEX is a large-scale IT system which, therefore, fits perfectly within the mandate of eu-
LISA.  It  is  large-scale  because  it  is  intended  to  connect  the  judicial  authorities  from  all  27 
Member States and in addition EU citizens, companies and legal professionals either via the 
European e-Justice Portal or the national legal communication systems. 
On  the  basis  of  the  feedback  from  the  agencies  consulted,  the  Council69 concluded  that  eu-
LISA  was  the  only  agency  that  met  the  required  criteria  on  governance,  know-how  and 
continuation  of  the  decentralised  architecture.  This  is  also  supported  by  the  stakeholders 
responding  to  the  inception  impact  assessment  -  of  the  four  stakeholders  favouring  handing 
over e-CODEX to an agency, three consider eu-LISA to be the most appropriate agency.  

  Cost-effectiveness 

The costs detailed above in section 6.2 are valid estimations also for the option “management 
by an agency”. However, because of its experience in managing large-scale IT systems such 
as SIS and VIS, as  well  as the  new  responsibilities and resources that  will accrue  to it  as a 
result  of  its  enlarged  mandate,  there  should  be  possibilities  for  the  eu-LISA  Agency  to 
identify  opportunities  for  synergies  with  existing  staff  already  working  on  the  other  IT 
systems in its portfolio. It should also be possible for the agency to subcontract parts of the 
management tasks. 

7.  HOW DO THE OPTIONS COMPARE? 

In  the  following  table  the  results  of  the  assessment  as  described  above  under  Section  6  are 
compared with option 1 representing the baseline scenario. 

Effectiveness 

The  baseline  scenario  would  mean  that  the  e-CODEX  system  is  no  longer  maintained 
centrally,  leading  to  uncoordinated  maintenance  of  the  existing  national  systems.  This 
scenario  therefore  runs  counter  to  the  specific  objective  of  preventing  inefficiencies  and 
improving efficiency of judicial procedures in cross-border communication. It would deprive 
the EU of a common interoperable digital information exchange system for the common area 

68  

69  

https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda- 
security/20170629_report_on_the_functioning_of_eulisa_swd_en.pdf 
http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-14465-2016-INIT/en/pdf 

35 

 
 
 
                                                 
of security and justice, which would run counter to the general objective of ensuring efficient 
functioning of that area by optimal use of judicial procedures.  

Management by the Commission may make it more difficult to ensure the involvement of the 
Member States in the process. The respect of the independence of national judiciaries calls for 
a formal involvement of Member States in the decision-making. This may be more difficult to 
ensure if the Commission is given the task.  

Management by an agency would on the contrary ensure a sustainable long-term base at EU-
level for the operational management of e-CODEX, allowing for involvement of the Member 
States. However, since it requires the adoption of a legal act, the agency solution requires that 
the  management  by  a  Member  State  Consortium  continues  until  the  handover  to  the  new 
entity managing the e-CODEX system. 

The transfer of e-CODEX-related tasks to eu-LISA would be appropriate, as eu-LISA is the 
European Agency for the operational management of  Large-Scale IT Systems in the area of 
freedom, security and justice. The eu-LISA agency was created exactly for this purpose. The 
management, governance and operational model was designed to run IT systems in the JHA 
area for Member States with high degree of security and entailing a high degree of sensitivity 
for the data contained in/transferred through the systems. 

Since  the  policy  objective  set  for  this  initiative  relates  to  the  efficient  functioning  of  the 
justice  area,  an  only  an  agency  with  a  mandate  within  that  area  would  ensure  the  specific 
management of the components in line with that objective.  

In  view  of  the  strong  support  for  handing  over  e-CODEX  to  eu-LISA  from  Member  States 
and stakeholders, this option has a better chance of operational success, and would overall be 
a proportionate solution to achieve the objective of an efficient functioning of a common area 
of security and justice. 

Option 3 therefore appears as the option which is most effective in fulfilling the specific and 
general objectives. 

Cost effectiveness 

The  costs  over  time  of  handing  over  e-CODEX  management  to  the  Commission  vs  an 
Agency  are  very  similar.  One  important  difference  lies  however  in  the  fact  that  while  the 
Commission  does  not  manage  large-scale  IT  systems  for  the  Member  States,  the  eu-LISA 
Agency  has  extensive  experience  of  the  management  of  such  systems.    There  is  therefore 
more scope for the eu-LISA Agency to identify opportunities for synergies and redeployment 
of existing staff already working on the other IT systems in its portfolio. 

Technical and operational feasibility 

Overall, the two management entities assessed (the Commission and an Agency) would both 
have  the  capacity  to  ensure  the  technical  and  operational  management  of  e-CODEX. 
However,  the  Agency  appears  preferable  in  particular  for  the  following  reason:    as  the 
Deloitte  study  found,  it  is  more  flexible  in  taking  into  account  the  needs  of  stakeholders 
compared to the Commission.  

Option 1 

Baseline 
scenario 

Option 2 

Option 3 

Management  by 
the Commission 

Handover to an Agency 

36 

 
 
 
Effectiveness 
inefficiencies 
procedures 
communication 

in 

in 

of 

preventing 
judicial 
cross-border 

0 

++ 

+++ 

Effectiveness 
improving 
efficiency  of  judicial  procedures 
in cross-border communication 

in 

0 

Cost -effectiveness 

0 

Technical 
feasibility 

and 

operational 

0 

++ 

+++ 

0/+ 

++ 

+ 

+++ 

Overall scoring 

0 

+/++ 

++/+++ 

Other impacts were not included, as it is considered that they will not, or only marginally, be 
affected by the choice of the option. 

8.  THE PREFERRED OPTION 

Based on the analysis of the impacts of the different options the preferred option is:  

Option 3 – Management by eu-LISA 

Description 

Cost Savings – Preferred Option 
Amount 

Comments 

Cost  savings  as  a  result  of  the 
use  of  digital  communication 
(e.g. 
the 
European 
Claims 
procedure  or 
the  European 
Order for Payment procedure 

e-CODEX) 
Small 

for 

the 

8-21  EUR,  3-9  days  per  case. 
length  of  EPO 
Overall, 
proceedings  would  be  reduced 
yearly  between  35.301  and 
127.836 days.  The total savings 
on  postage  would  amount  to 
between € 94.136 and €298.284. 

Better  enforcement  of  traffic 
fines 

8 million EUR per year (France)  The 

More 
proceedings 

efficient 

court 

5-10  minutes 
(Germany) 

per 

case 

37 

to 

businesses 

The  savings  are  indicated  in 
terms  of  costs  of  postage  and 
shortening  of 
the  procedure 
thanks  to  the  use  of  digital 
communication. 
These  benefits  would  accrue 
both 
and 
citizens/consumers  as  parties  to 
small claims proceedings. 
consist 
benefits 

of 
increased  enforcement  of  fines 
for cross-border traffic offences. 
These  benefits  would  accrue  to 
/ 
the  national  administration 
judiciary 
The  benefits  correspond 
to 
estimated  time  savings  due  to 
the use of e-CODEX in German 
courts 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
9. 

 HOW WOULD ACTUAL IMPACTS BE MONITORED AND EVALUATED?  

For  the  first  time  two  years  after  it  takes  over  responsibility  for  the  e-CODEX  system,  and 
every two years thereafter, eu-LISA shall submit a report to the Commission on the technical 
functioning  and  use  of  the  e-CODEX  system,  including  the  security  of  the  system.  On  the 
basis of this evaluation, the Commission will decide the appropriate follow-up. 

For  the  first  time  three  years  after  eu-LISA  takes  over  responsibility  for  the  e-CODEX 
system, and every four years thereafter, the Commission shall produce an overall evaluation 
of  the  e-CODEX  system.  That  overall  evaluation  shall  include  an  assessment  of  the 
application of the Regulation and an examination of results achieved against objectives, and 
may  formulate  any  necessary  recommendations.  The  Commission  shall  transmit  the 
evaluation report to the European Parliament and the Council. To assess the effectiveness in 
achieving  the  objectives  of  the  preferred  option,  the  following  core  indicators  have  been 
identified.  These  indicators  will  serve  as  the  basis  for  the  evaluation,  as  well  as  possible 
targets to be achieved five years after the change of management.  

Objectives  

Core indicators  

Baseline  

Target   

communication 

Prevent inefficiencies in cross-
border 
by 
ensuring 
sustainable 
maintenance  of  the  e-CODEX 
system beyond 2023 

Improve  efficiency  by  wider 
use of e-CODEX 

- Increase the number of EU 

Member states using e-
CODEX 

Number  of  Member 
States 
e-
CODEX  

using 

10 MS 

27 MS 

- Increase the number of 

judicial procedures using the 
e-CODEX system 

Judicial  procedures 
using the system  

6 procedures  

12 procedures 

Moreover,  e-CODEX  can  be  a  useful  instrument  to  assist  the  monitoring  of  the  different 
pieces of legislation in the field of judicial cooperation where it is applied. The use of a digital 
communication  structure  will  make  all  steps  of  the  relevant  procedure  traceable,  and  will 
facilitate the compilation of statistical data regarding the use of the procedure. 

38 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
10.  ANNEX 1: PROCEDURAL INFORMATION 

Lead DG: Directorate-General Justice and Consumers 

Agenda Planning 

Reference AP N° 

Short title 

Foreseen Adoption 

2017/JUST/794 

e-CODEX Regulation 

2 December 2020 

Organisation and timing 

An Inter-Service Steering Group (ISSG) was set up in July 2017. 

The  Inception  Impact  Assessment  was  validated  by  the  First  Vice  President’s  Cabinet  on  6 
July and published on 17 July 2017. 

The ISSG met two times before the submission of the Impact Assessment to the Regulatory 
Scrutiny Board on 8 November 2017. The ISSG made comments to the Impact Assessment at 
a meeting on 2 October. A revised version was then sent out for comments in writing. These 
comments  are  summarised  in  a  document  submitted  together  with  the  present  Impact 
Assessment. 

Consultation of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board 

This  Impact  Assessment  Report  was  submitted  to  the  Regulatory  Scrutiny  Board  for  its 
meeting on 13 December 2017. The Regulatory Scrutiny Board delivered its opinion (positive 
with  reservations)  on  15  December  2017  indicating  that  the  impact  assessment  should  be 
adjusted in order to integrate the Board's recommendations on specific aspects. These related 
firstly to the description of the future of the e-CODEX system and considered that it was not 
sufficiently clear whether the choice of the hosting Agency had already been agreed between 
the Council and the Commission. Secondly, the report should better explain why the uptake 
of  e-CODEX  is  low  and  how  the  proposed  regulation  would  overcome  the  existing 
bottlenecks.  Thirdly,  the  Board  considered  that  the  comparison  between  the  two  options  on 
hosting e-CODEX should be more balanced and less partial. The Commission has updated the 
present  report  to  respond  to  these  main  considerations  and  to  address  a  number  of  other 
comments made by the Board. 

39 

 
 
 
 
 
11.  ANNEX 2: STAKEHOLDERS CONSULTATION 

1.  Consultations  carried  out  by  the  e-CODEX  consortium  and  within  the  Council 
Working Party on e-Justice 

All  major  legal  professions  have  been  consulted  by  the  e-CODEX  consortium  on  the 
possibilities to hand over the management of e-CODEX. The Italian and Dutch Presidencies 
specifically collected the feedback of the CCBE, the Notaries of Europe (CNUE), the CEHJ, 
and  the  European  Law  Institute  (ELI).  Moreover,  the  e-CODEX  consortium  evaluated  the 
work  by  sending  out  questionnaires  to  stakeholders  including  piloting  courts,  consumer 
organisations and legal professionals.  

The  legal  professions  have  considered  e-CODEX  as  a  possible  way  forward  for  their 
activities. At a meeting70 of the  European Network of Councils of the Judiciary (ENCJ) the 
president  of  ENCJ  concluded  that  e-CODEX  has  to  be  considered  a  top  priority  by  the 
national Councils as well as by the decision makers in Brussels. 

The e-CODEX consortium maintained a regular dialogue with all important stakeholders and 
all Member States via the Expert Group on e-CODEX related issues of the Council Working 
Party on e-Justice, which meets 4-6 times per year. 

Moreover, the Council Working Party on e-Justice has held two meetings within the so-called 
cooperation  mechanism  in  2016,  2017  and  2018  where  stakeholders  have  been  invited  to 
discuss topics related to e-Justice.  e-CODEX was on the agenda of all these meetings. 

2. Feedback received on the inception impact assessment 

The inception  impact assessment was  published  on 17 July 2018.  11 respondents submitted 
comments, all of which  expressed support  for maintaining  e-CODEX, i.e. options 2-4.  Four 
respondents expressed views on the entity most appropriate to manage e-CODEX, and all of 
those  preferred  to  give  the  responsibility  to  an  Agency.  Respondent  stakeholders  included 
legal practitioners, Ministries of Justice and an international organisation.  

Summary of responses 

Deutscher EDV-Gerichtstag e.V. 

Deutscher  EDV-Gerichtstag  e.V.  welcomes  the  Commission’s  initiative  and  supports  the 
proposal to ensure a long-term use of the results of the e-CODEX project. 

As the number of cross-border cases is increasing, there is a need for digital solutions for the 
judiciary.  e-CODEX  could  fill  this  purpose,  in  order  to  allow  for  interoperable  procedures 
between the Member States. There is a need to extend e-CODEX to all Member States. 

Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) 

The  CCBE  supports  the  initiative  to  seek  for  a  sustainable  solution  of  the  operational 
management and further development of e-CODEX.  

The CCBE stresses that it would like to see the e-CODEX model being used in all e-Justice 
projects based on interconnection of judicial systems, in order to avoid different models being 
developed. 

70  

ENCJ Digital Justice Seminar 31 March 2017, Amsterdam - 
https://www.encj.eu/images/stories/pdf/workinggroups/encj_digital_justice_report_ppt.pdf 

40 

 
 
                                                 
Within  this  context,  the  CCBE  wishes  to  stress  the  importance  of  securing  an  "electronic 
equality of arms and access to justice”.  

Therefore,  regarding  the  future  governance  and  coordination  of  e-CODEX  and  e-CODEX-
related  activities,  the  CCBE  calls  upon  the  EU  institutions  to  ensure  that all  judicial  actors, 
including lawyers, remain closely involved. 

European Chamber of Bailiffs (CEHJ) 

The  CEHJ  welcomes  this  initiative  as  e-CODEX  is  of  utmost  importance  to  an  efficient 
justice system. The CEHJ has aligned its e-Justice strategy with e-CODEX and develops its 
project around the e-CODEX solution, because the CEHJ believes that e-CODEX is the only 
solution to create a strong European justice.  

A  solution  for  long-term  management  and  a  legal  instrument  confirming  e-CODEX  as  the 
reference  solution  in  the  field  of  cross-border  e-Justice  is  urgently  needed.  Without  this, 
Europe  runs  the  risk  of  missing  the  opportunity  of  a  common  efficient  tool  to  strengthen 
cross-border judicial cooperation and an easy access to justice for citizens, business and their 
representatives.  The  most  suitable  and  coherent  solution  would  be  eu-LISA  and  a 
governance  model  reflecting  the  characteristics  of  the  e-CODEX  solution  and  the  strong 
involvement of the legal professions. 

International Association of Legal Protection Insurance – RIAD 

RIAD, the International Association of Legal Protection Insurance, supports the introduction 
of technology which assures that national judicial systems can work together effectively and 
safely. Responsibility for operational management must be centralised and the  most  secure 
option seems to be to give responsibility to an EU agency. 

The introduction of binding rules at EU level to govern e-CODEX can benefit from past 
experience in the participating Member States: 

• to cooperate more efficiently and securely in cross-border criminal matters; 

• to pursue cross-border civil claims more effectively, e.g. small claims or order for payments 
procedures; 

•  to  avoid  the  parallel  implementation  of  divergent  technologies  in  the  different  Member 
States. 

Bundesministerium für Justiz (Österreich) 

The Ministry of Justice supports the Commission's initiative. 

It is urgent to find a sustainable solution for e-CODEX. The best option is to hand over the 
maintenance of the software components to eu-LISA. This should be done in 2018 already. 

UIHJ International Union of Judicial Officers 

The International Union of Judicial Officers welcomes the initiative. The possibilities created 
within e-CODEX in our opinion are of utmost importance to strengthen cross border judicial 
cooperation. A stable platform as it is developed under e-CODEX will have a positive effect 
in the creation of a European Judicial Area, including the field of civil enforcement. 

41 

 
 
European Law Institute 

The e-CODEX system offers practical benefits and has substantial potential to impact cross-
border judicial cooperation, not to mention the lives of ordinary individuals and enterprises. It 
addresses  important  aspects  of  several  European  legal  instruments.  The  European  Law 
Institute agrees that a stable synergetic platform is the best way to guarantee continuity and to 
realise the system’s untapped potential. It is keen to be involved in finding the best solution 
going forward. 

Hague Conference on Private International Law 

The  Hague  Conference  on  Private  International  Law  welcomes  the  initiative,  as  it  is  of 
paramount importance that e-CODEX be maintained.  

The Hague Conference has developed its iSupport software to be used in conjunction with e-
CODEX,  as  it  is  a  secure,  open-source  tool.  Portugal  and  the  State  of  California  have  used 
iSupport  and  e-CODEX  in  a  production  capacity  since  2016.  This  is  proof  not  only  of  the 
reusability  of  e-CODEX  but  also  of  its  ability  to  be  used  outside  of  the  European  Union, 
which creates  an even bigger imperative for the  constant  smooth  working of the e-CODEX 
solutions.  In  this  respect,  it  is  crucial  that  there  be  a  smooth  transition  to  long-term 
management in order to provide, in particular, rapid support to a growing number of users. 

European Network of Councils for the Judiciary 

We see that the proposal is assessed as being in full compliance with article 47 of the Charter 
of  Fundamental  Rights.  The  possibilities  created  by  the  e-CODEX  electronic  system  would 
have a positive impact on the ability to exercise the right  to an effective remedy, and are in 
conformity  with  Article  47  of  the  Charter  of  Fundamental  Rights  ´Right  to  an  effective 
remedy  and  to  a  fair  trial´  since  electronic  communication  and  document  transmission 
enhances and reduces the time of the court proceedings. 

The  European  Network  of  Councils  for  the  Judiciary  (ENCJ)  would  like  to  point  out  that 
Article 47 also guarantees the right to an impartial and independent tribunal. In relation to the 
future governance and coordination of e-CODEX and e-CODEX-related activities, we believe 
that the independence of the judiciary needs to be guaranteed as well. The ENCJ offers its 
co-operation to assess how this could be best organised. 

Judicial Officer (Belgium) 

This is a very important initiative. I am in favour of keeping e-CODEX at the European level 
and thus not to decentralise it. 

It is indeed necessary that e-CODEX is maintained at European level in order to provide for a 
uniform  way  to  transmit  documents.  e-CODEX  could  also  form  the  basis  of  a  recast  of  the 
EPO  Regulation  and  the  Small  Claims  Regulation  by  allowing  that  the  whole  procedure  is 
managed at EU level rather than locally in each Member State. 

Ministry of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany  

The initiative is expressly supported for the Ministry of Justice of the State of North Rhine-
Westphalia (DE). 

e-CODEX  has  developed,  under  the  coordination  of  the  local  ministry,  a  technological 
architecture  that  can  contribute  significantly  to  the  effective  and  secure  communication 
between Member States' judicial authorities. 

42 

 
Given the increasing globalisation, Europe cannot afford the courts and public prosecutions of 
the Member States to exchange data and information among themselves and with the citizens 
on a slow and / or uncertain path. 

The  e-CODEX  architecture  developed  here  offers  a  technical  solution  for  a  wide  range  of 
needs.  The  high  quality  and  efficiency  of  e-CODEX  is  already  evident  in  the  existing 
applications. Legal aid procedures (usually cross border) allow courts and public prosecutors 
to quickly and securely intervene with the authorities of the neighbouring country in order to 
ensure a targeted and efficient prosecution. If, in the future, evidence can still be exchanged 
via the technology (e-Evidence), the degree of efficiency is significantly increased again. 

In  civil  cases,  e-CODEX  makes  it  easier  for  citizens  to  make  claims  in  other  European 
countries, whether through the EPO or small claims procedures. 

In the area of the business registers, e-CODEX was used to establish a network of all Member 
States' registers (BRIS). 

There  is  an  urgent  need  to  provide  e-CODEX  with  a  regulation  as  a  relevant  technology 
binding  for  transnational  solutions  and  to  ensure  the  sustainability  and  further 
development  of  a  competent  agency  (eu-LISA).  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  isolated 
tendencies in the Member States to recognise parallel structures since e-CODEX is (still) not 
available. The great risk here is that the different techniques will not be compatible with each 
other in the future. This would not only prevent the progress of networking in the area of law 
enforcement  and  civil  proceedings,  but  would  even  counteract  them.  An  increasing 
inefficiency of European judicial cooperation would be the result. 

43 

 
 
 
12.  ANNEX 3: WHO IS AFFECTED BY THE INITIATIVE AND HOW? 

The foreseen options included in this initiative would affect the following stakeholders: 

Citizens 

Citizens will be affected by the implementation of e-CODEX to specific judicial procedures. 
The  permanent  management  of  the  system  will  ensure  improved  access  to  justice  to  these 
procedures, once they are digitalised. While the current possibilities for submission of claims 
online using e-CODEX is limited to a few Member States, in the future it could be extended 
to cover most of or all Member States, if admissible in accordance with the procedural rules 
of the Member States. Using e-CODEX for the submission of small claims in accordance with 
the European Small Claims Procedure (Regulation (EC) No 861/2007) can reduce the barriers 
for citizens to take action e.g. as consumers against a trader. 

National courts and other judicial authorities 

e-CODEX  will  be  used  to  facilitate  judicial  cooperation  between  national  authorities  and 
courts. e-CODEX can for instance be used to transmit European Investigation Order from a 
prosecutor  in  one  EU  Member  State  to  one  in  another  Member  State,  with  the  purpose  of 
obtaining electronic evidence. Also in the civil field the taking of evidence across borders can 
be easier with e-CODEX, as recently agreed between the co-legislators. 

Legal professionals 
Lawyers  will  be  able  to  use  the  European  e-Justice  Portal71 to  electronically  sign  and  send 
applications  for  European  payment  orders72 and  small  claims73 to  competent  courts  in  the 
Member States by means of e-CODEX subject to this being admissible in accordance with the 
procedural rules of the Member States (see further section 2.1.1).  Documents which need to 
be served on citizens in another Member States can be transmitted from one bailiff to another 
via e-CODEX. 

Description 

I. Overview of Benefits (total for all provisions) – Preferred Option 
Amount 

Comments 

Cost  savings  as  a  result  of  the 
use  of  digital  communication 
(e.g. 
the 
European 
Claims 
procedure  or 
the  European 
Order for Payment procedure 

e-CODEX) 
Small 

for 

Indirect benefits 

the 

8-21 EUR, 3-9 days per case 
length  of  EPO 
Overall, 
proceedings  would  be  reduced 
yearly  between  35.301  and 
127.836 days.  The total savings 
on  postage  would  amount  to 
between € 94.136 and €298.284. 

Better  enforcement  of  traffic 
fines 

8 million EUR per year (France)  The 

The  savings  are  indicated  in 
terms  of  costs  of  postage  and 
shortening  of 
the  procedure 
thanks  to  the  use  of  digital 
communication. 
These  benefits  would  accrue 
both 
and 
citizens/consumers  as  parties  to 
small claims proceedings. 
consist 
benefits 

of 
increased  enforcement  of  fines 
for cross-border traffic offences. 

businesses 

to 

71  https://e-justice.europa.eu/home.do 
72   In  accordance  with  Regulation  (EC)  No 1896/2006  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of 
12 December  2006  creating  a  European  order  for  payment  procedure  (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32006R1896). 

73   In accordance with Regulation (EC) No  861/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 
(http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-

establishing 

Procedure 

Claims 

Small 

2007 
content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02007R0861-20170714). 

European 

a 

44 

 
 
 
 
                                                 
More 
proceedings 

efficient 

court 

5-10  minutes 
(Germany) 

per 

case 

These  benefits  would  accrue  to 
/ 
the  national  administration 
judiciary 
The  benefits  correspond 
to 
estimated  time  savings  due  to 
the use of e-CODEX in German 
courts 

II. Overview of Costs (total for all provisions) – Preferred Option 

Handover 
e-
of 
CODEX 
to 
eu-
LISA 

Set-up  of 
e-
CODEX 
access 
point  at 
national 
level 

... 

Direct 
costs 

Indirect 
costs 
Direct 
costs 

0 

0 

0 

Citizens/Consumers 
One-off 

Recurrent  One-off 
0 

0 

Businesses 

Administrations 

Recurrent 
0 

 - 

One-off 

Recurrent 
Approx. 
1.9 
million  
(EU) 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

80-100 
person-days 

Indirect 
costs 

0 

0 

0 

0 

45 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
13.  ANNEX 4: THE E-CODEX SOLUTION 

The  goal  of  e-CODEX  (e-Justice  Communication  via  Online  Data  EXchange)  has  been  to 
improve  the  cross-border  access  of  practitioners,  citizens  and  businesses  to  legal  means  in 
Europe as well as to improve the interoperability between legal authorities within the EU. 

Due to high mobility and European integration, procedures containing cross-border effects are 
increasing. These procedures require cooperation between different national judicial systems. 
With the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) judicial procedures can 
be  more  transparent,  efficient  and  economic.  At  the  same  time,  ICT  facilitates  access  to 
justice  for  citizens,  companies,  administrations  and  legal  practitioners.  This  means  both 
smoother access to information and the ability to process cross-border cases efficiently. 

e-CODEX  has  designed  a  fully  technically  interoperable  European  e-Justice  system.  The 
solution respects both the principle of independence of the judiciary and of subsidiarity. The 
e-Services and infrastructure established in the Member States cover specific requirements of 
national legal systems. These national solutions  are  considerable investments and cannot be 
simply  replaced  by  new  centralised  approaches.  Consequently,  e-CODEX  has  built  a  pan-
European interoperability layer, consisting of XML Schemas to support the cross-border legal 
procedures,  the  necessary  communication  building  blocks  -  DOMIBUS  Gateway  and 
DOMIBUS connector and of the security functionalities that allows the interconnection of the 
national  solutions  without  changing  them.  The  focus  of  e-CODEX  has  been  on  developing 
common approaches and standards. 

The e-CODEX project has been implemented as part of the ICT Policy Support Programme 
(ICT PSP) as part of the Competitive and Innovation framework Programme (CIP) of the EU 
(ICT PSP CIP). 

The e-CODEX “big picture” 

In line with the general decentralised approach of the European e-Justice Portal, the technical 
architecture  chosen  in  e-CODEX  is  a  decentralised  four  corner  model  realised  by 
implementing the OASIS ebMS3.0 / AS474 standard. In other words: 

  Every participant hosts its own e-CODEX technical entry point; no central component 

is involved in the communication. 

  The connection to the national backend systems is channelled by a so-called gateway. 
An  e-CODEX  message  flow  would  be:  backend  application  A  sends  to  gateway  A, 
sends to gateway B, sends to backend application B. 

  Some  functionalities  necessary  for  the  message  exchange  within  the  Justice  domain 
are  not  part  of  the    ebMS3.0  /  AS4  standard.  These  were  realised  in  a  software 
component called Connector, which also builds the bridge to the backend applications. 

The picture below presents a high-level view of the e-CODEX architecture: 

74

To  enable  the  use  of  products  of  different  vendors  as  well  as  open  source  products,  ebMS  3.0  /  AS4 
were  chosen  as  technical  standards  for  communication  between  gateways.  Link  to  OASIS  standard: 
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-msg/ebms/v3.0/profiles/AS4-profile/v1.0/AS4-profile-v1.0.html 

46 

 
                                                 
  
Figure 1 e-CODEX Overview 

The e-CODEX project has been designed along the lines of several technical work packages 
and  pilots,  ensuring  both  the  creation  of  the  needed  Software  building  blocks  and  its 
validation in real-life cases. The pilots demonstrate that the functionalities developed enabled 
service interoperability across the Member States. The initial set of pilots was enlarged both 
in extensions of the project itself and in the framework of other projects. The e-CODEX pilots 
were  designed  to  be  operational  using  the  functionalities  developed  by  different  technical 
work packages of the project: 

 

Identity and Signature: Developed the signature verification, and e-Evidences creation  

  Exchange of Documents: Developed DOMIBUS Gateway, DOMIBUS Connector and 

Central testing platform 

  Document Standards: Developed the XML Schemas for the pilots 

The  table  below  maps  the  functionalities  developed  their  objectives  and  expected  output. 
Each pilot has run with the core building blocks listed below.  

Topic 

Objective 

Expected output 

47 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Identity:  Signature 
and Trust 

Aut
hent
icati
on 

Enable  secure  electronic 
communication through the 
use  of  federated  electronic 
identity 
signature 
and 
verification  in  cross-border 
e-Justice applications 

The output is to establish a model 
for 

the  use  of  a  European 
in  data 
e-Justice 

framework 
between 

(1) 
eIdentity 
exchange 
applications,  

(2)  Discovery 
recipients,  

of  Message 

(3)  Signature  verification  and 
federation. 

Transportation 
of 
documents and data  

Tra
nspo
rt 

and 

Summarise 
utilise 
already  existing  European 
standards  in  order  to  route 
documents 
data 
the  processes 
throughout 
integrating 
the  different 
constituents 

and 

The  output  is  a  set  of  interface 
descriptions (standards, concepts) 
as  well  as  conception  and  a  base 
implementation 
an 
exchange 
interoperable 
mechanism 
pilot 
implementation. 

the 

for 

of 

Business 
modelling 

process 

Alig
nme
nt 

Mutual  understanding  of 
legal 
the  execution  of 
procedures  by  means  of 
actors,  responsibilities  and 
activities 

Cont
ent 

Document 
Standards 

Handling 
related documents 

of  metadata-

Architecture 

Enable  the  integration  of 
building blocks 

Arc
hitec
ture 

The  output 
description 
process in 

is  a  multi-level 
business 
of 

the 

-  Actors 

-  Roles 

-  Business transactions 

-  Business documents 

The  output  is  a  set  of  standards 
interpreting 
for  mapping  and 
document  content  and  structured 
data  (metadata)  as  a  potential 
basis  for  implementing  the  pilot 
candidates. 

is 

to  set  up  an 
The  output 
governance 
overarching 
structure,  giving  guidance  on 
how  to  integrate  these  building 
blocks and best practices.  

The “big picture” below describes the process flow applicable to all use cases.  

Table 1 Core building block description 

48 

 
 
Figure 2 e-CODEX “big picture” 

Technical Building Blocks to be sustained and supported: 

Name 

Description 

Responsible 
(now  and 
the future) 

in 

49 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DOMIBUS 
Gateway 

The  DOMIBUS  Gateway  is  a  piece  of  software  that  is 
responsible  for  the  messaging  based  on  the  ebMS3.0 
standard. 

CEF 

 

 

 

It  transforms  the  National  Message  Format 
injected  from  the  National  Connector  to  the 
standard ebMS message format. 
It  signs  and  encrypts 
between the different Gateways. 
It implements Reliability and Quality of Service 
configurable behaviour. 

the  communication 

The  DOMIBUS  Gateway  is  currently  maintained  by 
CEF. As of 2021, its maintenance will likely be ensured 
under the Digital Europe programme. 

The full set of technical and architectural documentation 
can  be  downloaded 
at 
from 
https://ec.europa.eu/cefdigital/wiki/display/CEFDIGITA
L/Domibus 

the  CEF  wiki 

DOMIBUS 
Connector 
Framework 

the  national  backend 

system  and 
implements 

The  DOMIBUS  Connector  Framework  is  the  "glue" 
between 
the 
the 
DOMIBUS  Gateway.  It  basically 
workflows  for  sending  messages  from  the  national 
backend  system  to  the  Gateway  and  the  other  partner 
Gateway  in  Europe  (outgoing  workflow)  and  one  for 
receiving  messages  from  the  Gateway  and  forwarding 
them 
the  national  backend  system  (incoming 
workflow).  

to 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
in 
transferred 
the future 

The  DOMIBUS  Connector  Framework  is  currently 
maintained by the Me-CODEX Consortium.  

e-CODEX 
Web Site 

The e-CODEX Website maintains actual information on 
e-CODEX,  the  available building blocks, the supported 
pilots and all the links to JIRA, SW repositories and so 
on. 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
transferred 
in 
the future 

50 

 
Standalone 
Connector 

for 

the 

need 

national 

The  Standalone  Connector  is  a  full  implementation  of 
the  connector  framework  based  on  the  file  system, 
removing 
specific 
implementations.  If  a  message  is  received  it  is  just 
stored as files in a folder and there is no forwarding to a 
national  application  or  eDelivery  System.  The  same 
holds for sending a message, where the message content 
(PDF  file,  XML  file  and  any  attachments)  is  stored  as 
files  in  a  folder,  from  where  it  is  automatically  picked 
up and sent to the Gateway automatically. 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
transferred 
in 
the future 

The  standalone  connector  enables  a  Member  State 
without any national electronic application or eDelivery 
system to participate in e-CODEX in a basic way. 

Security 
Library 

The  Security  Library 
Connector. 

is  part  of 

the  DOMIBUS 

It  analyses  electronic  signatures  and  generates  an 
assessment  thereof  in  the  form  of  the  Trust  OK  (or 
NOK) Token. 

Evidence 
Builder 

The  Evidence  Builder  is  part  of  the  DOMIBUS 
Connector. 

It  generates  the  ETSI  REM  Evidences  (proof  of 
delivery) for the electronic messages exchanged through 
e-CODEX  at  a  number  of  delivery  points  from  the 
sender to the recipient. 

Administrativ
e Interface 

The  Administrative 
the  DOMIBUS 
interface 
Gateway  and  DOMIBUS  Connector  provides  a  visual 
tool that enables a system administrator to: 

for 

  Check  the  status  of  the  Gateway  and  of  the 

Connector (working or not working) 

  Check  the  pending  messages  (i.e.,  messages 
where  no  AS4  receipt  of  delivery  has  been 
received from the other side) 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
in 
transferred 
the future 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
in 
transferred 
the future 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
in 
transferred 
the future 

  Retrieve statistics on sent/received messages and 
the 

the  Gateway  and 

evidences,  for  both 
Connector 

Production 
environment 

A  real-use  version  of  the  (national)  back  end  system, 
DOMIBUS Connector and Gateway 

Member States 

Test 
environment 

A  test  version  of  the  (national)  back  end  system, 
DOMIBUS Connector and Gateway 

Member  States, 
be 
to 

51 

 
Development 
environment 

A  development  version  of  the  (national)  back  end 
system, DOMIBUS Connector and Gateway 

transferred 
the future 

in 

Member  States, 
be 
to 
transferred 
in 
the future 

and 

Documentati
on 
supporting 
documents 
(manuals, 
specifications 
and 
test 
plans) 

PModes 

Documentation for DOMIBUS Connector and Gateway  Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
in 
transferred 
the future 

The  processing  modes  for  the  test  and  production 
systems, necessary to allow the DOMIBUS gateways to 
communicate with one another. 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
transferred 
in 
the future 

Truststores 

The  trust  stores  containing  the  certificates  of  the 
production  and  test  systems,  necessary  to  establish  the 
trust  (closed  circle  of  communication)  among  the 
DOMIBUS gateways. 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
transferred 
in 
the future 

Central 
Testing 
Platform 

The  Central  Testing  Platform  (CTP),  a  tool  to  support 
participants  in  e-CODEX  obtain  a  functional  system 
faster.  The  CTP  provides  a  full  e-CODEX 
test 
environment for sending and receiving test messages for 
all existing e-CODEX pilots. 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
transferred 
in 
the future 

XML 
structures 
and 
legal 
concepts 

core 

The XML schemas for the underlying legal procedures, 
allowing  documents  produced  by  a  system  in  one 
Member  State  to  be  understood  by  a  system  in  a 
different  Member  State.  The  schemas  form  a  common, 
shared  data  structure,  a  European  standard  for  the 
exchange of forms. 

Currently  Me-
CODEX,  to  be 
transferred 
in 
the future 

52 

 
 
 
e-CODEX costs are mainly driven by the personnel needed for the necessary activities. There 
are  three  main  streams  of  activities  required  in  the  management  of  e-CODEX:  the 
management  of  the  e-CODEX  community,  the  maintenance  of  the  e-CODEX  software, 
standards and methodology, and business and technical support for the use of e-CODEX. 

Since  some  of  these  activities  are  policy-related,  their  transfer  to  an  EU  agency  is  not 
envisaged. Those that will remain in the joint competence of the European Commission and 
the Member State stakeholders are indicated as "non-transferable" below. They would not be 
transferred to an agency even in the case of policy option 3. For the European Commission, 
these  tasks  should  be  carried  out  with  the  resources  currently  devoted  to  e-CODEX 
implementation. 

Stream 1.  Management of the e-CODEX community 

  Overall coordination of policy activities relating to e-CODEX including preparation of  

the necessary implementing acts (non-transferrable) 

  Communication about the progress of the project, milestones, monitoring of uptake of 

e-CODEX 

 

Identification of business needs (non-transferrable) 

  Coordination of the countries connected through e-CODEX 

  Establishing  and  continuous  development  of  a  European  e-CODEX  community  of 

legal practitioners (non-transferrable) 

  Contact with e-CODEX-like communities in and outside Europe (non-transferrable) 

  Collection  of  user  feedback and  change requests in a systematic way and translation 

thereof into technical specifications 

  Active development of e-CODEX support in the new areas of application at a business 

level (non-transferrable) 

Stream 2.  Management of the e-CODEX software, standards and methodology 

53 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Maintenance  of  the  IT  infrastructure  for  the  development  and  distribution  of  e-

CODEX software, standards and methodology 

  Maintenance of the e-CODEX web site, mailing lists and technical sections (software 

releases, manuals, collaborative platforms) 

  Maintenance, coordination and distribution of PModes (configuration of e-CODEX) 

  Maintenance, bug fixing and continuous evolution of e-CODEX software modules 

  Maintenance of Central Testing Platform 

  Maintenance  of  e-CODEX  software  repositories,  which  are  storing  the  code  of  the 

software modules 

  Creation  of  business  process  models  in  new  areas  where  the  use  of  e-CODEX  is 

introduced and maintenance of existing ones 

  Provision  of  expert  assistance  for  ensuring  semantic  interoperability  and  process 
modelling.  This  activity  refers  to  helping  stakeholder  communities,  in  workshops  or 
similar  settings,  articulate  workflows,  semantic  differences  and 
for 
interoperability, and later ensure modelling thereof 

rules 

  Maintenance of data  definition repositories/vocabularies, data models and  XSDs and 
creation of new ones in new areas where the use of e-CODEX is introduced. This is a 
essential  part  of  the  electronic  message  exchange  for  the  specific  supported  cross-
border legal procedures.  

  Support and coordination of testing for Member States using e-CODEX 

Stream 3.  Business and technical support for the use of e-CODEX 

This  stream  refers  to  helping  connect  further  Member  States  or  organisations  to  the  e-
CODEX network, to the introduction of e-CODEX for use in additional legal procedures 
and  to  modifications  of  how  e-CODEX  is  used  in  already  supported  cross-border 
procedures: 

  Assistance  in  digital  implementation  of  legislation  and  procedures  adopted  by  the 

European institutions (non-transferrable) 

  Digital  awareness  consultancy  for  legislative  experts  drafting  European  legislation 

(non-transferrable) 

  Legal monitoring of horizontal legislation like eIDAS, Data Protection and of changes 

to legal procedures for which e-CODEX is used (non-transferrable) 

  Active  monitoring  and  participation 

the 
in 
standardisation  organisations  relevant  for  e-CODEX.  For  the  development  and 
maintenance  of  e-CODEX  it  is  essential  to  monitor  and  implement  the  further 
developments in the used standards, for an example the changes in ebMS standard or 
the evolution of certificate technologies. 

the  work  processes  set  up  by 

  Limited  assistance  to  projects  using  e-CODEX  which  are  not  led  by  the  European 
Commission. This refers mainly to the maintenance and bug fixing of the e-CODEX 
building  blocks,  like  DOMIBUS  Gateway,  DOMIBUS  connector  or  XML  Schemas 
and process modelling 

54 

 
 
 
A Product management team ensures: 

  governance 

 

the specific knowledge and expertise required to host and manage the decentralised 
architecture of e-CODEX. The required knowledge is in the area of the used standards 
(ebMS, ETSI  REM, certificate handling)  and in  the usage of the  developed  building 
blocks  (DOMIBUS  Gateway,  DOMIBUS  Connector,  CTP).  Finally,  knowledge  in 
modelling  XML  vocabulary  for the message  exchange is  essential for the  support of 
the cross border legal procedures. 

55 

 
 
 
 
 
14.  ANNEX 5: COST OF INSTALLATION OF E-CODEX AT MEMBER STATE LEVEL 

Introduction 

The  project  e-CODEX  -  a  large-scale  e-Justice  pilot  project  co-funded  by  the  EU  Commission  -  has 
developed cross-border services for European citizens, companies and legal professionals to enable 
access  to  justice  systems  across  Europe.  Besides  that,  the  services  are  also  used  to  improve  the 
cross-border  collaboration  between  the  courts  and  agencies  through  interoperability  between  the 
existing national ICT solutions. 

Technical Aspects  

In  line  with  the  general  decentralised  approach  of  the  European  e-Justice  portal,  the  technical 
architecture  chosen  in  e-CODEX  is  a  decentralised  four  corner  model  realised  by  implementing  the 
ebms3 / AS475 standard. In other words: 

  Every  participant  hosts  its  own  e-CODEX  technical  entry  point;  no  central  component  is 

involved in the communication. 

  The connection to the national backend systems is channelled by a so-called gateway. An e-
CODEX  message  flow  would  be:  backend  application  A  sends  to  gateway  A,  sends  to 
gateway B, sends to backend application B. 

  Some functionalities necessary for the message exchange within  the Justice domain are not 
part  of  the  ebMS3  /  AS4  standard.  These  were  realised  in  a  software  component  called 
Connector, which also builds the bridge to the backend applications. 

Thus, the e-CODEX cross-border infrastructure is consisting of  

(i) 

(ii) 

an e-CODEX Gateway,  

an e-CODEX National Connector,  

(iii) 

a National System (service provider) 

75  

To  enable  the  use  of  products  of different  vendors  as  well  as  open source  products,  ebms3 /  AS4  were  chosen  as 
technical standards for communication between gateways. Link to OASIS standard: http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-
msg/ebms/v3.0/profiles/AS4-profile/v1.0/AS4-profile-v1.0.html 

56 

 
 
 
                                                 
eDelivery  is  the  basic  function  of  the  Gateway.  The  e-CODEX  Gateway  establishes  a  secure  and 
reliable as well standardized connection with any other Gateway on the Member State’s side.  

The  National  Connector  handles  the  semantic  mappings  and  enables  the  national  systems  to 
communicate with the e-CODEX Gateway. It is being customized by each participating country to fit its 
specific needs. Usually it is linked to a National System which is, in turn, used by the courts, lawyers, 
parties, etc.76  

High Level Cost Estimate  

The  following  calculation  is  based  on  the  first  experiences  of  piloting  countries  in  e-CODEX.  All  of 
them are strongly involved in the e-CODEX project. Therefore it should be noticed that costs might be 
differ  for  other  countries,  especially  if  they  were  not  involved  in  the  project  and/or  have  no  or  less 
experiences with the standards used. 

In general, the costs for deploying and operating an  access point based on the DOMIBUS Gateway 
and Connector compose of (personnel) costs for: 

 
 

Installation the DOMIBUS Gateway/Connector  
Integration  of  the  national  system,  establishing  the  semantic  mapping  as  well  as  creation  of 
Trust OK Token via the connector 

  Testing  

o  Connectivity Testing 

  Gateway2Gateway 
  Connector2Connector 

o  End2End Testing 

Since  the  personnel  costs  most  likely  will  differ  from  country  to  country,  the  estimates  are  given  on 
basis of person days (PD).  

Regarding the setup of a DOMIBUS Gate and Connector, the efforts (carried out by an experienced 
team) in person days is estimated as follows: 

What to do 

effort 
estimated 

comment 

for 

the 

used: 
Preconditions 
OS: 
Windows 
Unix 
AS: Tomcat, WebSphere (with adaptions), BEA (with 
adaptions) 
DB: Oracle, MySQL (tested and scripted) 

server 
or 

based 

Download  “Domibus  eCodex  Gateway”  from 
https://secure.e-
codex.eu/nexus/content/repositories/releases/e
u/domibus/domibus-distribution/2.0-FINAL/  
You  can  choose 
packages 
infrastructure 
Installing DOMIBUS and adapt configuration 

there  between  different 
server 
your 

depending 

on 

 No effort for setup of the server  included 
the  server 

is  assumed 

that 

here. 
infrastructure is available. 

It 

 No  costs  included  for  the  certificates 

used; 

 No  efforts  for  tests  with  another  partner 

included here 

0,5 PD  

Effort  only  1  time  foreseen,  not  per 
instance 

1 PD 

Effort  per  instance,  1  instance  is  e.g.  a 
test instance of DOMIBUS 

Create  and  install  database  environment  for 
Domibus using the sql scripts 

2 PD 

Effort  per  instance,  1  instance  is  e.g.  a 
test instance of DOMIBUS 

76  

The gateway and connector developed in e-CODEX got the name DOMIBUS (Domain Interoperability BUS). 

57 

 
  
 
                                                 
Get  certificates  for  generating  ASIC-S  secure 
container and SSL-connection 

2 PD 

Effort  per  instance,  1  instance  is  e.g.  a 
test instance of DOMIBUS 

(respectively 

the  pmodes) 

the  organisation 
for  generating  new 

Trigger  DE 
handling 
pmodes with new target URL 
Download  ECodexConnector  Framework  from 
https://secure.e-
codex.eu/nexus/content/repositories/releases/e
u/ecodex/connector/ECodexConnectorDistributi
on/2.0.3/ 
implement  NationalConnector  integrating  the 
ECodexConnector  FW  and  overwrite  interfaces 
for  NationalBackend,  SecurityToolkit  and 
NationalContentMapping 
Create and install database environment for the 
connector using the SQL scripts 

0,5 PD 

0,5 PD 

Effort  per  instance,  1  instance  is  e.g.  a 
test instance of DOMIBUS 

Effort  only  1  time  foreseen,  not  per 
instance 

10 -15 PD  Effort  only  1  time  foreseen,  not  per 
instance,  effort  might  also  depend  on 
the 
solution, 
especially for the mapping 
Effort per instance, 
1  instance  is  e.g.  a  test  instance  of 
DOMIBUS 

backend 

national 

2 PD 

SUM 

18,5 - 23,5 
PD 

Sum for 1 instance 

On the operational level at least one additional national instance - besides the live system - for testing 
should also be set up. The costs for this are expected to be lower than for the first instance due to the 
gain in experience. 

SUM setup of another instance 

7,5 PD 

Sum for another instance 

Besides  it  might  be  valid  to  add  additional  25  PDs  for  preparation  and  project  management  on  the 
Member States side. 

to  be  expected 

Efforts 
the  Gateway2Gateway  and 
testing  activities  –  especially 
Connector2Connector  –  can  be  only  roughly  estimated  with  20  PDs  due  the  dependencies  from  to 
many factors. The availability  of the e-CODEX Central Testing Platform has surely a  positive impact 
on the efforts to be considered here. 

for 

Conclusion 

As a rough estimation all the aforementioned cost factors adds up to 76 PDs in total.  

The  efforts  needed  for  process  analysis,  data  modeling  and  analysis  of  a  new  e-CODEX  European 
schema for a new use case are not included. 

58 

 
 
 
 
 
15.  ANNEX 6: YEARLY BENEFITS OF DIGITALISATION OF THE EUROPEAN PAYMENT ORDER 

PROCEDURE 

59 

Column1Weighting Number of applications lower valueNumber of applications lower valueWeighting number of applications (average 2012/2013 AT, PT)Number of applications (average 2012/2013 AT, PT)Weighting number of applications higher valueNumber of applications higher valueLength of proceedingsWeighted  length of proceedings lower valueLength of proceedings lower valueWeighted average length of proceedingsAverage Length of proceedingsWeighted  length of proceedings higher valueLength of proceedings higher valueBE2,7%3192,5%3192,2%3191-2 weeks0,5%70,5%10,50,6%14BG0,9%1090,8%1090,8%10930 days2,2%301,6%301,2%30CZ (2013)3,0%3582,8%3582,5%3582 weeks to 6 months1,0%145,0%977,3%180DE35,1%413031,8%413029,1%41302-3 weeks1,0%140,9%17,50,8%21EE0,1%60,0%60,0%61 week to 5 months0,5%74,1%78,56,1%150IE1,6%1891,5%1891,3%1892 weeks to 6 months1,0%145,0%977,3%180EL1,4%1681,3%1681,2%1681-2 months 2,2%302,3%452,4%60ES0,5%630,5%630,4%638 months17,3%24012,4%2409,7%240FR2,8%3352,6%3352,4%3352 months4,3%603,1%602,4%60CY (2013)0,1%110,1%110,1%112 weeks - 5 months1,0%144,2%826,1%150LT0,1%90,1%90,1%930 days2,2%301,6%301,2%30LU (2013)1,9%2181,7%2181,5%2181-2 months 2,2%302,3%452,4%60HU (2013)3,8%4423,4%4423,1%4420-3 months (350 cases), 3-6 months (139 cases)1,9%26,33,7%70,64,7%115,6MT0,0%10,0%10,0%11 week0,5%70,4%70,3%7NL3,2%3722,9%3722,6%3725 months10,8%1507,8%1506,1%150AT18,0%211925,0%324330,7%43671,5-4 months3,2%454,3%82,54,8%120PL15,3%180013,9%180012,7%18004.5 months9,7%1357,0%1355,5%135PT2,5%2963,0%390,53,4%4855 months10,8%1507,8%1506,1%150SI0,1%120,1%120,1%125 months10,8%1507,8%1506,1%150SK0,7%860,7%860,6%861-9 months2,2%307,8%15010,9%270SE0,8%910,7%910,6%91142 days10,3%1427,4%1425,7%142FI5,4%6334,9%6334,5%6332 months4,3%603,1%602,4%60UK208no data100,0%1.385      100,0%1.930      100,0%2.475      HR..IT..LV..RO..sum100,0%11.767          100,0%12.986          100,0%14.204         534,9590,3645,663,087,7112,5Average length of proceedingsNumber of applications lower valueNumber of applications (average 2012/2013 AT, PT)Number of applications higher valuebaseline ( total no. applications *  average length of proceedings)740.946       817.672       894.399       short duration - days of proceeding1.032.064    1.138.936    1.245.809   medium duration - days of proceeding1.323.564    1.460.623    1.597.681   long duration - days of proceeding35.301          38.957          42.612         3 days time reduction105.903       116.870       127.836       9 days time reduction3 days time reduction705.645       778.716       851.787       short duration - 3 days less of proceeding996.763       1.099.980    1.203.197   medium duration - 3 days less of proceeding1.288.263    1.421.666    1.555.069   long duration - 3 days less of proceeding9 days time reduction635.043       700.803       766.563       short duration - 9 days less of proceeding926.161       1.022.067    1.117.973   medium duration - 9 days less of proceeding1.217.661    1.343.753    1.469.845   long duration - 9 days less of proceedingNumber of applications lower valueNumber of applications (average 2012/2013 AT, PT)Number of applications higher value94.136€       103.884€     113.632€     8 Euro postage170.622€     188.290€     205.958€     14.5 EURO postage (average)247.107€     272.696€     298.284€     21 Euro postage4.279€          4.722€          5.165€         8 Euro postage7.756€          8.559€          9.362€         14.5 EURO postage (average)11.232€       12.395€       13.558€       21 Euro postageLength of proceedingsAverage no. of applicationsReduced days of proceedings total, p.a.35 301 days -              127 836 daysTotal savings on postage p.a.EUR 94 136 -          EUR 298 284Average savings on postage p.a./MSEUR 4 279  -          EUR 13 558Number of applications 
 
 
16.  GLOSSARY 

e-CODEX 

BRIS    

CCBE   

CEHJ   

EIO 

EPO 

iSupport system 

"e-Justice  Communication  via  Online  Data  Exchange"- 
a 
communication  system  for  secure  exchange  of  information  developed 
for the judicial area 

Network of Member States' business registers 

Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe 

European Chamber of Bailiffs 

European Investigation Order 

European Order for Payment 

IT  system  for  the  cross-border  recovery  of  maintenance  obligations 
under the EU 2009 Maintenance Regulation  and the 2007 Hague Child 
for 
Support  Convention,  which  makes  use  of 
communication 

e-CODEX 

Me-CODEX 

Maintenance  of  e-CODEX  project  –  the  project(s)  with  EU  funding 
ensuring the maintenance of e-CODEX 

MLA 

Mutual Legal Assistance 

Acronym 

Explanation 

API 

AS 

DES 
DGP 
DGJUST 
DNIe 
DPC 
Driver 
DSP 

DSS 

Domibus 
DSI 
DSL 
ebBP 
ebCore 
ebMS 

Application programming interface 
Applicability Statement 
AS177,  AS278,  AS379 and  AS480 are  a  family  of  protocols  specifying  how  to 
transport data securely and reliably over the Internet. 
Data Encryption Standard 
Delivery Gateway Protocol 
Directorate General for Justice 
Documento Nacional de Identidade Electrónico (National ID card / Spain) 
Data Protection and Confidentiality 
Software allowing computer programs to interact with a hardware device 
Delivery Service Provider  
Digital signature Standard (NIST) 

ebMS3 Access Point based on the AS4 profile. 
Digital Service Infrastructure 
Dynamic Service Location 
ebXML Business Process Specification Schema 
ebXML Core 
ebXML Messaging Service Specification 

77  
78  
79  
80  

AS1 specification, RFC 3335,  http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3335.txt 
AS2 specification, RFC 4130,   http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4130.txt 
AS3 specification, RFC 4823, http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4823    
AS4 conformance profile,  
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-msg/ebms/v3.0/profiles/AS4-profile/v1.0/csprd03/AS4-profile-v1.0-
csprd03.odt 

60 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
                                                 
 
Eclipse 

ECMA 

eDelivery 

E2EE 
ebBP 
ebMS 

ebXML  

e-CODEX 
ED-GW 
eID 
eIDM 
EPO 
GW 
HW 
ICT 
ID / eID 
IOP 
ISSP 
JHA 
LSP 

OCSP 

PEGS 
PEPPOL 
PEPS 
P-Mode 
QC 
SHA 
SOAP 
SP 
SPOCS 
SSCD 
SSL V3+ 
SSO  
STORK 
SW 
TAN 
Time Mark 

Token 

TSL 
TSP 

Project to use XML to standardise the secure exchange of business data. 
A  platform  for  developing  software  applications.  It  can  be  downloaded  at 
http://www.eclipse.org/ 
European Computer Manufacturers Association 
CEF  building  block to  allow  public  administrations  to  exchange  electronic  data 
and documents with other public administrations, businesses and citizens, in an 
interoperable, secure, reliable and trusted way. 
eDelivery is based on the concept of a four corner model, where the end entities 
(corners  one  and  four)  exchange  messages  via  Access  Point  intermediaries 
(corners two and three). eDelivery standardises the communication only between 
these  Access  Point  intermediaries.  Communication  between  Access  Points  and 
end entities may use any communication protocol. 
End-to-End Encryption  
ebXML Business Process, part of ebXML stack 
ebXML Messaging Services 
Electronic  Business  using  eXtensible  Markup  Language,  commonly  known  as  e-
business XML 
e-Justice Communication via Online Data Exchange 
Electronic Delivery Gateway  
Electronic Identity 
Electronic Identity Management 
European Payment Order 
Gateway 
Hardware 
Information and Communications Technology 
Identity Document / electronic Identity Document  
Interoperability  
Information System Security Policy  
Justice and Home Affairs Council 
Large Scale Pilot 
Online Certificate Status Protocol, see “RFC 2560” 
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2560.txt 
Pan-European e-Government Services  
Pan-European Public Procurement Online (http://www.peppol.eu/) 
Pan-European Proxy Services (STORK) 
Processing Mode 
Qualified Certificate 
Secure Hash Algorithm (NIST) 
Simple Object Access Protocol 
Security Policy 
Simple Procedures Online for Cross- Border Services (http://www.eu-spocs.eu/) 
Secure Signature Creation Device 
Secure Sockets Layer v3 
Single Sign-On Profile 
Secure idenTity acrOss boRders linked (https://www.eID-stork.eu/) 
Software 
Transaction Authentication Number 
Timestamp alternative defined in XAdES specification 
Physical  device  that  an  authorized  user  of  computer  services  is  given  to  ease 
authentication. 
Trust-service Status List, published by ETSI as TS 102 231 
Trusted Service Provider 

61 

 
  
TTP 
UC 

VIdP 

WP 
WP29 

WP4 

WSDL 
WS-I 
W3C 

XACML 

XAdES  

a 

as 

serves 

between 

component 

Trusted Third Party  
Use Case 
Virtual  IDP.  A  system  component  helping  to  abstract  Pan-European  eID 
interoperability. 
It 
the 
delegation 
either 
SP-MW or S-PEPS and the needed SPware (appropriate MW server Component) 
or enables SP-MW to communicate with other C-PEPS. 
Work Package 
Article 29 Data Protection Working Party 
Work  Package  4  of  the  e-CODEX  project,  Identity  (eID  for  natural  and  legal 
persons, roles, mandates and rights) and eSignatures 
Web Services Description Language 
Web Services Interoperability81 
World Wide Web Consortium 
eXtensible Access Control Markup Language 
http://saml.xml.org/xacml-oasis-standard 
XML Advanced Digital signatures, published by ETSI as TS 101 903   

‘Interoperability,  within  the  context  of  European  public  service  delivery,  is  the  ability  of 
disparate  and  diverse  organisations  to  interact  towards  mutually  beneficial  and  agreed 
common  goals,  involving  the  sharing  of  information  and  knowledge  between  the 
organisations, through the business processes they support, by means of the exchange of data 
between their respective ICT systems.’ 

Source: European Interoperability Framework (EIF) for European public services, page 2 Chapter 1.2.2 

The European Interoperability Framework distinguishes four levels of interoperability. 

Each  deserves  special  attention  when  a  new  European  public  service  is  established.  The 
practical  implementation  of  the  conceptual  model  for  cross-border/cross-sector  services 
requires each of these levels to be taken into account.  

81  

http://www.oasis-ws-i.org/ 

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