[…]
SUBJECT: Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on electronic invoicing in public procurement COM(2013) 449 final of 26.6.2013. Comments of the Emilia-Romagna Region within the meaning of Article 24 (3) of Law No 234 of 2012 and analysis with regard to application of the subsidiarity principle, within the meaning of Protocol No 2 appended to the Treaty of Lisbon
RESOLUTION
Commission I - Budget and General and Institutional Affairs of the
Legislative Assembly of the Emilia-Romagna Region
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[…] would make the following points with reference to aspects raised by points a), b) and c):
a)the legal basis appears to have been identified correctly as Article114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU);
b)for the purposes of applying Protocol No 2 appended to the Treaty of Lisbon, which provides for legislative assemblies to be involved in monitoring subsidiarity alongside their respective national parliaments within the context of what is known as the early warning system, the proposal for a decision appears to be in line with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality as defined by Article 5 (3) and (4) of the Treaty on European Union;
c)regarding the merits of the proposal for a directive :
welcomes the fact that the proposal for a directive aims to replace the existing system of multiple incompatible legal requirements and technical standards for electronic invoicing in the various Member States of the European Union, which prevent economic operators from accessing the market for public procurement and often engender costs that are difficult for companies to shoulder, by introducing the requirement that contracting authorities and bodies must accept all electronic invoices that comply with a new common European invoicing standard. This will standardise the information contained in invoices so as to ensure that the various existing systems are interoperable. To this end, the European Commission will task the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) with drawing up a standard, in line with the provisions of Article 10 of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 (Article 3 of the proposal). The proposal for a directive, as it is currently worded, will oblige contracting authorities to accept electronic invoices that comply with the common standard. That standard will cover the basic content, but the freedom will remain to identify and use other ways of structuring the document (or other formats), without requiring that the various technical mechanisms for electronic invoicing chosen for national (and regional) systems be replaced. The outcome will be that the various systems (developed at European, national and regional levels) should be able to coexist;
points out, nevertheless, that the absence in the proposal for a directive of specific indications regarding the format of the electronic invoice will oblige contracting authorities and entities to apply functionalities that make it possible to scan all invoice formats, with the result that additional resources will have to be invested in order to develop means of scanning different format types. Therefore, in order to spare contracting authorities and bodies additional costs that would be difficult to avoid and that might arise from the updates that would be necessary in order to ensure that the various invoicing formats used around Europe could be scanned, proposes an addition to the proposal for a directive (Article 3) to state that when the CEN is defining the common European standard it should also determine the document format. In this connection, points out that significant results have been achieved in this respect as part of the European project entitled PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement On Line), in which the Emilia-Romagna is involved. The solution developed under this project, to which the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) contributed and which sets out both the content and format for an electronic invoice, would appear to be the best way to avoid the problems referred to above;
stresses, lastly, that Italian legislation on electronic invoicing, which applies to contracting authorities and (also) to suppliers, currently requires that electronic invoices issued, transmitted (and accepted) must comply with the standards and technical rules defined by Decree No 55 of 3 April 2013 issued by the Minister for Economy and Finance. Although it is not currently possible to predict whether and to what extent the technical options chosen under national legislation will differ from the common European standard – since under Article 4 of the proposal for a directive Member States will have to ensure that contracting authorities do not refuse electronic invoices that comply with the common European standard –, one possibility appears to be that suppliers should be able to fulfil the electronic invoicing requirements by opting for either the "national" model or for the "European models". Therefore, in order to avoid problems with implementation, points out that, notwithstanding the current model that has already been adopted centrally, the national system should be able to accept electronic invoices that comply with the European model in all possible formats;
d)requires thatthis resolution be sent to the Senate of the Republic and to the Chamber of Deputies in order to provide an opinion in accordance with Protocol No 2 on the Application of the Principles of Subsidiarity and Proportionality and within the meaning of Article 25 of Law No 234 of 2012, and to contribute to the framing of the Chambers' documents in the context of participation in the political dialogue along with the institutions of the European Union under Article 9 of Law No 234 of 2012;
e)requiresthat this resolution be sent to the Emilia-Romagna Regional Government in order to secure the best possible links between the region's various bodies when carrying out their respective activities and fulfilling the responsibilities conferred by law and regulations and calls on the Regional Government to send this resolution to the government and to the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, so as to contribute to the formulation of an Italian position, within the meaning of Article 24 (3) of Law No 234 of 2012;
f)callson the Regional Government to inform the legislative assembly on the follow-up to the comments of the Emilia-Romagna Region on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on electronic invoicing in public procurement - COM(2013) 449 final of 26.6.2013, and in particular on any positions taken by the region at European and national levels, with particular attention to those taken within the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces and to any subsequent contributions made by the Region to the European decision-making process;
g)also requires that this resolution be sent to the Conference of Presidents of the Legislative Assemblies of the Regions and Autonomous Provinces, within the meaning of Article 25 of Law No 234 of 2012 and, so as to maximise dissemination of information on upstream participatory activities, to Emilia-Romagna's MEPs and members of the Committee of the Regions, to the subsidiarity network of the Committee of the Regions and to the European and Italian regional legislative assemblies.
Approved by a majority at the meeting of 17 September 2013, in accordance with Article 38 (4) of the Rules of¨ Procedure and Article 6 (2) and (7) of Regional Law No 16 of 2008.
CDR5616-2013_01_00_TRA_INFO