Call for proposals

Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom 2017 – in the areas of: "BRIS,eIdentification & eSignature, EESSI, European e-Justice Portal " - CEF-TC-2017-1

(2017/C 50/04)

 

Objectives and description 

The overall objective of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is to pursue economic growth and support the completion and functioning of the internal market in support of the competitiveness of the European economy.

 

CEF Telecom in particular is aimed at pursuing real improvements in daily life for citizens, businesses (including SMEs) and administrations through the deployment of solid trans-EU interoperable infrastructures based on mature technical and organisational solutions. CEF focuses on providing operational services which are ready to be deployed and which will be sustainable and maintained over time. CEF Telecom equally aims at promoting the deployment and modernisation of broadband networks that underpin these internet services by fostering the efficient flow of private and public investments.

 

In this context, the current call for proposals refers to the following topics:

·         CEF-TC-2017-1: Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS)

The limited cross-border access to business information results in a risky business environment for consumers and for existing or potential business partners, and reduces legal certainty. Directive 2012/17/EU requires the establishment of an information system that interconnects the central, commercial and companies registers (also referred to as business registers) of all Member States.

 

The system - named Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS) - will consist of: a core services platform named European Central Platform (ECP); the Member States business registers; and will use the e-Justice portal as European electronic access point to information on companies.

 

Only Generic Services will be supported in 2017. The grants for Generic Services will support the Member States to meet the following main objectives:

o    Enabling business registers to support the data model and the standard messages coming from BRIS, which may involve the upgrade of the existing business registers. This is particularly important for Member States that have less sophisticated or technologically outdated business registers;

o    Operation and maintenance of access points once in operational mode. Moreover, all the Generic Services projects under this section are expected, for the purpose of document delivery, to either directly deploy the eDelivery Building Block or use eDelivery through a service provider.

 

·         CEF-TC-2017-1: eIdentification & eSignature

The objective of the supported action is to ensure the integration of the tools provided by the eSignature DSI by public sector bodies in order to comply with the requirements as set out in the eIDAS Regulation as well as to facilitate the cross-border completion of electronic procedures by companies applying for administrative decisions with public administrations of other Member States.

 

eIdentification:

The core service platform offers services to support Member States at the technical and operational level. In WP2017 these will be extended to support the linkage of attributes in the form of data additional to existing core data to eServices connected to the eIDAS node for operational use. Similarly, the core service platform will facilitate the operational use of mandates and authorities, consistent inter alia with the ISA² activities. The WP2017 will also provide technical support and advice, including the maintenance of the reference implementation, in order to complete the provision of a network of nodes across all Member States.

 

Generic Services Generic Services under WP2017 will offer support for three main types of actions:

o    the integration of the eID

o    the building of eIDAS nodes

o    eIDAS enabled Erasmus Student eCard

 

eSignature:

Core Services Platform Core service platform activities in the WP2017 will help maintain and update the respective software tools previously provided, and ensure that relevant content i.e. tools, support, training materials, best practices, views and news are available for the CEF Digital Single web portal. Core service platform activities will also provide help and training for national bodies responsible for trusted lists and national Trusted List Scheme Operators to ensure that they can operate services at a permanent and predictable quality level to ensure crossborder accessibility, availability, conformance, and trustworthiness of the national trusted lists into a single European Trust Backbone permanently available to all relying services across EU borders, Similarly, it will help providers of solutions implementing advanced electronic signatures to rely on the Digital Signature Services (DSS) software library for the creation and validation of e-signatures in compliance with the rules provided for in the eIDAS Regulation. All the core service platform activities will promote the uptake and speed up of the use of the eSignature DSI amongst both public and private entities established in the EU and EEA countries participating in the CEF Telecom programme.

 

Generic Services under the WP2017 will help develop systems for Member States and private sector relying on eSignature DSI Building Block (SD-DSS).

 

·         CEF-TC-2017-1: Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESSI)

The main objective of this DSI is to improve the cross border communication between the national social security institutions of 32 countries (EU Member States and Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland), by introducing an electronic communication platform for efficient exchange of information. The EESSI platform covers the cross-border business processes of all branches of social security such as: accidents at work and occupational disease benefits, family benefits, pension benefits, recovery of benefits and contributions, sickness and healthcare benefits, unemployment benefits, etc.

Actions supported by the WP2017 will be carried out mainly in 2017-2018, and their main focus will be on:

Core Service Platform

o    Setting up the second and third level IT support activities for the national users;

o    Providing direct technical support for Member States technical teams installing and integrating the Access Points and RINA.

o    Preparation and delivery of training material and training activities for the Member States. Generic Services

o    Consultancy for project management, feasibility studies, assessment studies and deployment related to the EESSI software and overall EESSI implementation at national level;

o    Acquisition of hardware required by the EESSI DSI;

o    Acquisition of infrastructure software licenses necessary for the installation, operation and connection of the EESSI Access Points (currently 59 in total) to the Core platform;

o    Installation and configuration of the EESSI Access Points, including nonproduction environments;

o    Activities related to the setting up of the eDelivery conformant access points in Members States as part of National IT Applications;

o    Set up and training of the first and second level IT support teams of the EESSI Access Points participating in the EESSI DSI.

o    Training for users involved in the EESSI cross-border business processes;

o    Distribution, installation and configuration, development and deployment of national applications to allow connection to the EESSI core platform and compliance with the cross-border business processes.

 

CEF-TC-2017-1: European e-Justice Portal

The Portal's objective is to contribute to the creation of a European judicial area by leveraging ICT to facilitate access to justice and enable electronic cross-border judicial proceedings and judicial cooperation. The European e-Justice Portal, at its second stage of development, is expanding from being a provider of information to being a provider of services in the judicial area. The European e-Justice Portal core service platform (CSP) is being actively developed, with a focus on bringing online the e-CODEX module. Work is also underway to prepare a new module for the interconnection of land registers and to align the existing interconnection of insolvency registers with new legislation. Member State generic services (GS) will be created to connect to the existing modules of the CSP, self-funded or funded via CEF Work Programme 2016.

New Generic Services (GS) will continue to be developed, expanding the area of coverage of the various CSP modules:

o    Interconnection of Insolvency Registers

o    European Case Law Identifier

o    Access to e-CODEX

o    Interconnection of Land Registers

o    European Court Database

 

Eligible participants

Proposals must be submitted by one or more Member States or, with the agreement of the Member States concerned, by international organisations, joint undertakings, or public or private undertakings or bodies established in Member States.

 

European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries which are members of the European Economic Area (EEA) may also participate in accordance with the conditions laid down in the EEA Agreement.

 

In addition, acceding States and candidate countries benefiting from a pre-accession strategy may participate in the CEF Telecom in accordance with agreements signed with the Union.

 

Proposals may be submitted by entities which do not have legal personality under the applicable national law, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf and offer a guarantee for the protection of the Union’s financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons. Proposals submitted by natural persons will not be eligible.

 

Specific eligibility criteria for each topic:

 

CEF-TC-2017-1: Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS)

o    Eligible organisations: Business Registers as referred to in Directive 2009/101/EC

o    Consortium composition: one or more organisations one or more eligible countries

 

CEF-TC-2017-1: eIdentification & eSignature

o    Eligible organisations: at least one should be a public service or acting on behalf of a public service

o    Consortium composition: minimum of three organisations one or more eligible countries

 

CEF-TC-2017-1: Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESSI)

o    Eligible organisation: any

o    Consortium composition: one or more organisations one or more eligible countries

 

CEF-TC-2017-1: European e-Justice Portal

Interconnection of Insolvency Registers

o    national public administrations competent for or operating insolvency or commercial registers

European Case Law Identifier

o    national, European and international case law publishers or providers

Access to e-CODEX

o    public administrations

Interconnection of Land Registers

o    organisations competent for or operating land registers and/or cadastres.

o    Relevant professional registers may also apply to implement the authentication mechanism

European Court Database

o    public administrations

 

o    Consortium composition: one or more organisations one or more eligible countries

Funding conditions and duration

The total budget for this call for proposals is: 27,5 million EUR. More specifically:

 

Topic	Indicative Budget	Funding Rate (of the total eligible costs)	Duration
Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS)	2 million EUR	75%	18 months
eIdentification & eSignature	7 million EUR	75%	12 months
Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESSI)	17 million EUR Funding will be limited to maximum of EUR 2 million per country, regardless of whether one or several entities from that same country apply.	75%	24 months
European eJustice Portal	1,5 million EUR	75%	24 months

 

Deadline of proposals' submission

The deadline for submission of applications is 18 May 2017 at 17:00, Brussels local time.

Further information

Please, find attached the 2017-1 CEF Telecom Work Programme.

 

Any additional specific questions related to this call may be addressed to the helpdesk email: INEA-CEF-TELECOM-CALLS@ec.europa.eu

 

More information: https://ec.europa.eu/inea/en/connecting-europe-facility/cef-telecom/apply-funding/2017-cef-telecom-calls-proposals

 

A 2017-1 CEF Telecom calls virtual Info Day will take place on Tuesday 28 February 2017 and will cover four priorities of the 2017 CEF Telecom Calls which open on 17 February.

o    Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS)

o    eIdentification (eID) & eSignature

o    Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESSI)

o    European e-Justice Portal

More information: https://ec.europa.eu/inea/en/news-events/events/2017-1-cef-telecom-calls-virtual-info-day

 

 

 

Kind Regards,

Rosemary

 

    

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE GREEK TRANSLATION OF THE CALLS IS PROVIDED AT REQUEST OF ANY INTERESTED MEMBER (based on the decision of 22.12.2016 of the EOC Administrative Council).