Description (short summary):
eProcurement is considered one of the most promising services within e-government in terms of cost and time efficiency. Within the European Union, the Internal Market requires cross-border eProcurement. The European Council has issued directives and guidelines for this purpose. While eProcurement works on national levels, cross-border eProcurement in Europe does not. This is mainly due to lacking technical interoperability and legal harmonisation in particular concerning the use of e-signatures. Through a comparative study of the different legal provisions in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden, this article provides an overview of the current state-of-play and makes suggestions on how to overcome the remaining obstacles to pan-European eProcurement.
This article starts with a brief definition of the main concepts and a review of the contents of the official (legal) documents and studies that relate to the use of esignatures in eProcurement. Then, success-factors and barriers for their cross-border adoption are discussed from a legal point of view. Based on a comparison of the national profiles from Germany and the PROCURE pilot participants Czech Republic, France, Spain, and Sweden, recommendations for European legislation and individual measures to better align national regulations and the mutual recognition of electronic signatures in eProcurement among the Member States are made.
Source: ePractice
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