EUROCHAMBRES/ChamberSign conference on e-Government in Brussels, asked Siim Kallas, Vice-President of the European
Commission in charge of Administrative affairs, to introduce the use of
electronic applications, such as the e-Signature, in the European
Commission's administrative procedures, especially to enable
e-Procurement.
Alfonso Carcasona, President of ChamberSign*, explained: "Every
year, thousands of businesses and other organisations submit to the
European Commission tender applications, contracts or invoices, and are
obliged to do so in paper because the Commission does not recognise the
use of e-Signature. We call on the Commission to accept the use of
this tool as soon as possible, since this would greatly increase the
speed and transparency of e-Procurement formalities, and bring massive
savings for both businesses and administrations."
EUR 2.5 billions could be saved by the EU each year if there were
more e-Government applications, according to a report sent by the UK
government to Enterprise Commissioner Gunter Verheugen in July 2008. A
simple reason for this is that documents signed electronically, can
also be archived electronically, thus reducing filing and management
costs.
While the European Commission encourages electronic procedure for
public procurement in an Action Plan published in 2004 and sets some
objectives for Member States to be reached by 2010, no such objectives
are set for itself.
e-Signature: promoted in Europe by ChamberSign
The electronic signature is a particular technology which binds
together a document and a person's identity; it can be used to verify
that a document was issued at a certain time by a given individual or
organisation and was not modified.
The use of e-Signature and other electronic certificates is promoted
among European businesses by ChamberSign, an Association - set up by
EUROCHAMBRES - bringing together Chambers of Commerce and Industry from
Austria, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and the United
Kingdom. Since 1999, ChamberSign members delivered over 3 million
authentication certificates to companies, which use them for multiple
purposes such as signing VAT declarations online, signing electronic
invoices, securing email exchanges or doing electronic Procurement.
Source: http://finchannel.com