Let me start by speaking about egovernment and the Digital Single Market

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1 Good morning ladies and gentlemen. First of all I would like to congratulate PEPPOL and all the sponsors for this successful conference and I would also like to thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to deliver this closing speech. Let me start by speaking about egovernment and the Digital Single Market MS have made significant progress in transforming their administrations through the use of ICT. But they did so in an uncoordinated way, and as a consequence, erecting barriers to the single market. Therefore we need to accept that despite all the efforts today the cross border delivery of on-line government services is still limited. In many instances, it is very hard and sometimes not possible at all, to request or obtain services from administrations in a different MS using the internet. Companies wishing to move or procure in another country are not yet being helped enough by the internet. Neither are those citizens who wish to study, retire or receive healthcare abroad. Whereas 84% of businesses used egovernment services in 2011, EUROSTAT data shows that very few companies are willing to bid for

2 tenders in another country. This results in missing the opportunities offered by the single market. A 2011 survey on barriers to the single market found that about half of them are caused by the lack of coordination I mentioned before. The good news is that this could be solved if egovernment were able to work across borders. We must eliminate those barriers so that citizens and businesses can access services seamlessly across borders, making the most of Europe's physical and Digital Single Market. To do so, we must connect our existing disparate national systems. In the same way that egovernment services should be user-centric, governments should also aim to make them "euro-centric". It will bring economic opportunities and will enhance mobility in the Single Market. As part of the Digital Agenda, the Commission and member stated approved the egoverment Action Plan at the end of It includes a specific action to identify the list of egovernment cross border services that have to be in place by I really hope that this time will be for good This conference has been an opportunity to illustrate how the EC and Member States are developing together a set of building blocks to provide on-line cross border services in key areas such as eprocurement, eid, business mobility, ejustice and electronic patient records. Yes, these are still pilots, but the time has now come to focus on moving these building blocks beyond the pilot phase so that not only they become available in ALL Member States, but also that they can form the basis on which we can build new cross border services.

3 Let' s me speak now about eprocurement Public Procurement is over 2 trillion euros business, or 19% of EU's GDP. However, fragmentation across thousands of procuring bodies and suppliers drives up costs and limits access. The good news is that we all here, know that ICT can help a lot to overcome this. There is growing evidence of how eprocurement can provide major savings to business and administrations. For example, it is estimated that a switch to full eprocurement could bring savings between 5 and 20% what could amount, at least, to 100 billion euros per year in the EU. And here there are a few additional examples to illustrate the gains : Scotland has audited savings of 1.2 billion Pounds through the use of electronic procurement. Sweden has seen a 20% reduction in prices of procured goods Portugal has estimated that it can make savings of 5 % on the administrative cost of the total public procurement of the country. I am just back from a trip with my Commissioner to Korea and there, they have estimated savings amounting to $ 8.1 billion out of which 6.6 are for the private sector and 1.5 for the public sector The Commission has proposed at the end of 2011 a revision of the public procurement directive, with an ambitious objective to reach compulsory paperless procurement for the pre-awarding phase as of mid Thanks to PEPPOL work and effort, such an objective becomes now reachable.

4 PEPPOL I am sure that you all know that PEPPOL has aimed to remove the roadblocks to cross-border procurement, with solutions, for instance, for the ordering and invoicing processes that take place during the operation of the contract post-award, for use and validation of esignatures, for the use of eattestations and company certificates, and for making information reusable in more than one procurement process. The potential benefits is clear : more competition means better and cheaper public services for taxpayers. Businesses, especially SME's, will get a boost from easier access to public markets; and the market for innovative eprocurement solutions and services will increase, boosting European ICT industry. PEPPOL will end in August and we see now some very encouraging signs of the success of the pilot. For example: In Italy, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, France and Norway, commercial service providers have already connected to the PEPPOL interoperability infrastructure, with providers in the UK, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Portugal expected to follow soon so advantages can be seen and acted upon by the market alone, also outside the PEPPOL consortium countries. There are also positive reactions among the industry, which is following developments very closely and has taken part in two technical validation meetings. Additional proof is that, according to my information, industry is very present in this event And we, at the Commission, have eaten our own dog food, as the Americans call it, and have been using, for instance, e-invoicing since 2009 thanks to e-prior (our e-procurement services platform).

5 Needless to say that eprior is fully aligned with the PEPPOL concepts and that, to preach with the example, the Commission intends to have full e-procurement in place by mid-2015, one year before the deadline stated in the proposal of directive. The eprior platform, that we release as Open Source with EUPL license, is currently being evaluated by contracting authorities in several countries such as Greece, Norway, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. Croatia and Belgium have recently joined the group. Open PEPPOL With the official end of the PEPPOL project in August, a long term sustainability roadmap is being developed between the Commission and the PEPPOL consortium. The roadmap describes three main paths for the sustainability of PEPPOL results. These are: a) User driven path: OpenPEPPOL. b) Funding path; with the Commission's proposal for establishment of Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), including the involvement of ISA (the Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations programme) and the proposal for a New Large Scale Pilot Basic Cross Sector Services. c) Standardisation path; with continued efforts for standardisation of business processes and semantics and edelivery through CEN, OASIS and other relevant standardisation bodies/initiatives. The foreseen mission statement for OpenPEPPOL is to increase eprocurement interoperability in Europe by providing high level governance and support for the expanding use and the long term

6 maintenance and evolution of PEPPOL specifications, building blocks and related legal agreements. All of this should ensure the long term sustainability of the PEPPOL infrastructure networks and user communities. As stated this morning, it is planned that the OpenPEPPOL association will be established as a non-profit international association under Belgium law what is a quite innovative approach in this area. Sustainability for parts of the common infrastructure for PEPPOL has been included in the 2012 Work Programme for ISA. The scope and modalities of the transfer of ownership of ISA responsibilities is currently being internally discussed as part of the EC supported path for PEPPOL sustainability. Continued development of PEPPOL building blocks is part of the scope for the CIP ICTPSP 2012 Work Programme Pilot A Basic Cross Sector Services Call. This means that the interface and the division of responsibilities between the user driven sustainability path, the EC supported path and the standardisation focused path is currently being shaped. The role of the Connecting Europe Facilty The sustainability of the current cross border services and the development of new ones is a key priority for the Commission. As my colleagues from DG INFSO mentioned this morning, the Commission s proposal for the Connecting Europe Facility is the proof that we take sustainability seriously. In fact, for the next multi-annual financial framework, from 2014 to 2020, the EC has proposed 2 billion to provide inter-connected on-line public

7 services in key areas such as, for exemple, eprocurement, eid, ejustice and ehealth. The Council and the Parliament are negotiating at this very moment the different elements of the CEF package. Your support for this initiative is obviously welcome History has shown us that phenomenal growth can be achieved by connecting what is already there. And to connect the dots we used to build power plants and bridges. Open PEPPOL is one such bridge and with new digital infrastructures that can help Europe to return back to the growth and prosperity track. For us to succeed, we need to secure the continued engagement and commitment by all relevant actors: National public administrations, industry and all of us who see the public sector as a force for change, innovation and growth. A force to build, connect and grow. Goodbye PEPPOL, Welcome Open PEPPOL. Thank you very much for your attention.