New Regulation on e-Signature: finally a European digital market in sight!

ChamberSign, the Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry that provides e-Signature in Europe, warmly welcomed today’s European Commission Regulation on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions.

This Regulation - to be immediately adopted by Member States - will correct some limits of the 1999 electronic signature Directive, and finally pave the way for a European digital single market.

"The way that the 1999 e-Signature Directive was implemented by Member States led to significant national disparities and considerably slowed down the development of a single market for electronic transactions," said Vito Giannella President of ChamberSign.  "France, for example, still makes it particularly difficult for companies with a non-French signature certificate to access French electronic public procurement.  The new Regulation will substitute national law and prohibit such behaviour."

Another positive aspect of the proposal is the ambition to gather under one trust scheme services such as electronic signature, seals, time stamps or delivery services.  This will ensure coherence in the supervision of the trust services providers and better transparency for end users.

"We regret nevertheless that the supervision is left to Member States rather than to a pan European entity.  We hope that Member States will opt for joint supervisory operations as the Regulation leaves that door open," added Mr Giannella.

ChamberSign also hopes that the sensitive discussions related to the eID part of the Regulation will not distract and delay the adoption of the Regulation.

Electronic signature, a fast growing market:

• About 9 million citizens in Belgium have a qualified electronic signature on there eID card;
• Over 2 million qualified electronic signatures monthly and 5,5 million time stamping transactions are registered in Estonia every month;
• In France, e-Signature secures electronic transactions worth over EUR 300 billion per year;
• In Italy, 4 million companies' legal representatives are equipped with qualified electronic signature;
• In Spain, the @firma tool validates more than 250,000 qualified electronic signatures and 6 million certificates monthly in relation to public administration transactions;
• Over 1 billion advanced electronic signature daily at EU level (banking, payroll...)

ChamberSign is an association - set up by EUROCHAMBRES - bringing together Chambers of Commerce and Industry from Austria, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. So far, ChamberSign members have delivered over 4 million authentication certificates to companies, which use them for multiple purposes such as signing VAT declarations online, signing electronic invoices, securing email exchanges or electronic procurement.