infobalt

Within the scope of the e.Invoicing project, it is planned to modernize the national information system ‘E. sąskaita’.

Stakeholders Presented with the Benefits and Opportunities of the European ‘eInvoicing’ Standard

2019 June 20

This week, representatives from the public and private sectors were introduced to the electronic invoicing innovation coming into force on 1 July – the new ‘E. sąskaita’ standard module ‘eInvoicing’, which will enable contracting authorities to receive and process electronic invoices compliant with the European standard from other European countries.

At the conference ‘eInvoicing – Results and Opportunities’ held at the Ministry of Economy and Innovation, representatives of state institutions and private businesses gathered to hear the latest information about this innovation, its benefits, and opportunities.

During the conference, representatives of the ‘eInvoicing Cross-Border LT’ project partners discussed new electronic invoicing opportunities. The event also emphasized the need to continue the collaboration that has begun, so that the newly created technological tools become useful to their users.

Among the key benefits of ‘eInvoicing’ are a unified EU invoice standard, as well as the fact that these innovations enable data exchange in real time, which ensures faster payment for goods or services. In addition, faster and cheaper data processing is ensured, and all data is stored centrally according to the highest security standards. Environmental benefits from reduced consumption of paper, printing materials, fuel, and other energy are also noted.

‘eInvoicing’ is another step by Lithuania towards a digital European Union and a common EU services market.

Until now, the ‘E. sąskaita’ information system has enabled suppliers executing public procurement contracts in Lithuania to submit invoices electronically. However, the ability to exchange these documents at the international level—among European countries—has not existed until now.

Following the implementation of the system modernization phase, the technical standards for electronic invoices have been unified, and interoperability has been ensured between systems registered in the international association PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line) throughout Europe. All these changes will allow suppliers from European countries to participate in public procurements conducted by Lithuanian contracting authorities, to submit electronic invoices more promptly and reliably, and ultimately will serve as an incentive for more efficient international movement of goods and services and increase competition among suppliers.

It is projected that, once the innovation enters into force, foreign entities will submit at least 1,500 electronic invoices in the system by the end of the year.

The new ‘eInvoicing’ standard module is currently being tested in Lithuania. Similar systems, created in implementation of the European Parliament and Council Directive 2014/55/EU of April 16, 2014, on the use of electronic invoicing in public procurement, are already operating or will begin operating in other European countries as well.

The provisions of the Directive have been transposed into the Law on Public Procurement of the Republic of Lithuania, with the amendments entering into force on June 11, 2019. Electronic invoices of the new standard may be submitted using any Access Point registered in the PEPPOL international association network that uses the PEPPOL AS4 profile.

The ‘eInvoicing Cross-Border LT’ project, funded by the Connecting Europe Facility, is being implemented by the Centre of Registers together with partners: the Ministry of Economy and Innovation, companies ‘Alna Software’, ‘Skaitos kompiuterių servisas’, ‘Sistemų integracijos sprendimai’, and the association ‘Infobalt’.

‘eInvoicing’ is one of the building blocks of the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility. Common European standards should stimulate the development of the EU single market, economic growth, and increase the region’s competitiveness.

Project partners: State Enterprise Centre of Registers, Ministry of Economy, Alna Software, Skaitos kompiuterių servisas, Sistemų integracijos sprendimai, and Infobalt Association.

Project duration: 2017–2019

An IT professional training platform based on partnerships between IT companies and professional training providers, operating since 2014. The platform runs 8-10 month professional training programs. Akademija.IT provides junior developer and tester knowledge and practical skills for those seeking to reskill or gain qualifications. Company representatives select candidates, teach, and provide paid internships.

More about Akademija.IT www.akademija.it

A cybersecurity conference organized by the INFOBALT association.

A camp for children from socially vulnerable families, organized with funds donated by INFOBALT members in collaboration with the organization Save the Children. The camp’s goal is to introduce children to new IT technologies. This initiative is part of the campaign For a Safe Lithuania, under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė.

The objective of the project “Promotion of Group Export Initiatives by INFOBALT Members No. 2” (INGEIS-2) is to encourage small, micro, and medium-sized enterprises to focus on finding new foreign markets and expanding into existing ones. This is an excellent opportunity for INFOBALT’s SME members to improve their international prospects by establishing contacts with new buyers in foreign markets. During the project, business missions will be organized with the aim of establishing new international connections with representatives from other countries by presenting the companies’ business potential and opportunities for business cooperation, while at the same time introducing foreign representatives to the products offered by these companies. The project will be implemented by the INFOBALT association in collaboration with a group of small, micro, and medium-sized enterprises linked by partnership ties.

The project’s objectives, tasks, and expected results contribute to Priority 3 of the 2014–2020 European Union Funds Investment Action Program, “Promoting the Competitiveness of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises” and Task 3.2.1, “Increasing the Internationalization of SMEs,” as well as the goals for the development of Lithuanian exports: to maintain existing export positions in foreign markets and penetrate new markets, particularly in third countries; to promote the expansion of exports of goods and services with higher added value.

During the project implementation, the goal is to participate in 24 business missions abroad. The countries to be visited are: the USA, France, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Africa, Israel, Canada, Sweden, and Ukraine. Currently, 22 missions have already been implemented.

The project is funded by the European Union Structural Funds.

Problem. Until 2017, Lithuania was one of the few European Union (EU) countries without access to the EU’s core service platform operating within the EU’s unified digital service infrastructure, thus remaining isolated from cross-border digital services.

Meanwhile, Lithuanian businesses exchange vast quantities of documents daily with EU institutions, economic entities, and citizens, yet have virtually no means to send and receive these electronic documents in an interoperable, secure, reliable, and legally recognized manner. Such cross-border exchange of electronic documents is enabled by the electronic delivery digital service building block).

Opportunities. The EU encourages EU Member States to participate in the development and use of cross-border digital services by providing Member States with access to EU trans-European networks and offering financial support for the development of such services through projects of common interest. The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is the EU’s primary financial support instrument for transeuropean networks and digital service infrastructure building blocks, —such as electronic delivery (eDelivery), electronic invoicing (eInvoicing), electronic identification (eID), electronic signature (eSignature), e-health (eHealth), and electronic translation (eTranslation).

Project. For the development of electronic delivery (eDelivery) in Lithuania, in 2017 the European Commission provided financial support from the CEF programme for the implementation of the “eDeliveryLT” project (Project No. 2016-LT-IA-0080, Contract No. INEA/CEF/ICT/A2016/1284783).

Project value: EUR 248,810, with partners’ own contribution to the project amounting to EUR 62,202.5.

Project duration: 2 years, starting April 1, 2017, ending April 1, 2019, with planned electronic delivery operations commencing September 1, 2018.

Partners. The “eDeliveryLT” project is implemented by the Infobalt association (coordinator) together with its partners: UAB “Sistemų integracijos sprendimai”, UAB “Skaitos kompiuterių servisas”, and the public institution “eDeliveryLT”. The latter is responsible for the further maintenance and development of electronic delivery.

Project objective: to create an Access Point with a Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) for cross-border exchange of electronic documents and to test the operation of this Access Point for one year. This will enable Lithuanian economic entities to exchange electronic documents both among themselves and across the EU.

For electronic delivery, eDelivery LT plans to use the B2A (business-to-administration) scenario approved by the PEPPOL organization, which is compatible with the B2B (business-to-business) scenario. Compliance with electronic identification and trusted transaction requirements ensures legal certainty and reliability in cross-border electronic document transmission, while the interface with the trans-European Digital Service Infrastructure (DSI) ensures secure and convenient document transactions.

Benefits. Electronic delivery will enable interoperability at the EU level and among EU Member States regardless of the standards used in each EU country.

Furthermore, once electronic delivery is established in Lithuania as one of the EU Single Market and Schengen Area countries, it can be extended beyond EU borders, primarily to EU Eastern Partnership countries, from which major flows of transport, goods, and services originate.

https://www.edelivery.lt/

The author alone is responsible for this publication. The European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

A cluster formed by INFOBALT members, dedicated to strengthened export activities and promotion of Lithuania’s ICT sector.

Link: www.e-lithuania.eu

The Digital Innovation Network (DIGINNO) is a unique Baltic-Nordic project in which public and private sector representatives aim to promote the development of industrial digitalization and the creation of new cross-border public services. This will contribute to the growth of the digital economy and the integration of the EU Digital Single Market.

Project duration: 2017–2020.

Link: https://www.diginnobsr.eu/

Problem. Over the past decade, Lithuania has made significant progress in digitizing services. Despite new technologies and advances in the IT sector, Lithuania currently faces challenges that need to be considered and addressed as quickly as possible using new or recently developed technologies, such as blockchain technology. By participating in the Digital Single Market, Lithuania has the opportunity to connect to the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI). To connect to EBSI, it is only necessary to create a national connection node, which will become an additional channel for data exchange at the EU level. A sufficient number of EBSI nodes across the European Union can determine the standardization of digital public service usage: simplify use, increase accessibility for citizens, businesses, or government institutions.

Opportunities. Lithuania’s national node, integrated with EBSI, will enable EU Member States and Lithuania to share information securely and reliably—incoming and outgoing document flows and their monitoring at the EU level, without interfering with the work of other countries’ institutions. Once a sufficient number of EBSI nodes is established in all EU Member States, a critical mass will be created for effective network operation—the more Member States connect to EBSI, the more electronic services will be available on a cross-border basis. The Lithuanian node will become part of EBSI and contribute to European digital services. It will be intended for cross-border and national use.

The application of blockchain (otherwise known as DLT) technology is growing rapidly in national and EU-level initiatives. Blockchain technology allows information to be traced independently of the technologies used by other countries. A DLT node provides new usage opportunities in these sectors:

• many organizations developing social economy activities could significantly improve their operations management by using blockchain technology, making it more secure and traceable;
• blockchain could be used to certify skills, ensuring the security of qualifications and diplomas issued in digital form or issuing digital certificates that automatically update information in employees’ and students’ CVs;
• blockchain technology can be useful in the field of health, personal care, and social services, both for secure data and information storage and for service access and people identification. The ability to implement secure telemedicine and e-care systems can have a significant impact on people’s quality of life.
• the agricultural sector is examining how new technologies could be used for complete product traceability and recognition, preventing fraud or counterfeiting that is harmful to both producers and consumers.

Project. Project title: “Development of a DLTnode node integrated with the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) in Lithuania and strengthening the capacity of public services and institutions to use EBSI.” The European Commission has allocated financial support from the CEF programme for the “DLTnode” project (Project number 2020-LT-IA-0019, contract number INEA/CEF/ICT/A2020/2287551).

Project value: EUR 198,540, partners’ own contribution to the project – EUR 49,635.

Project duration – 1 year: start 2021-03-01, end 2022-03-01.

Partners. The project is implemented by the Infobalt association together with partners: eDelivery (public institution), Systems Integration Solutions (private limited company), Skaitos kompiuterių servisas (private limited company), and Ekonominės konsultacijos ir tyrimai (private limited company)

The project objective is to create, test, validate, and integrate a Distributed ledger technology (DLT) node into the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) and strengthen the capacity of public services, institutions, and stakeholders to use EBSI. DLTnode deployment, testing, and validation in EBSI will be carried out in compliance with security, data protection, and eIDAS requirements. During the project, two training programs will be developed for national node users and technical implementation specialists, and training will be conducted to facilitate EBSI use in Lithuania. Communication and outreach activities will also be carried out to increase understanding of DLTnode availability and encourage the exchange of good practices.

Benefits. Lithuania’s connection to EBSI will create the opportunity to provide cross-border public services based on blockchain technology and improve the interaction of citizens, government, and organizations.

The author is solely responsible for this publication. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

Read in english here.

DINNOCAP is an international digital collaboration project between industry associations, government agencies, and knowledge institutions in eight Baltic Sea Region (BSR) countries. DINNOCAP is co-financed by the EU Interreg BSR program and operates from January 2021 to December 2021.

The objective of DINNOCAP is to develop the digital economy in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR):

• promote greater ICT adoption in industrial small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs);
• foster cross-border interoperability through innovative public cross-border e-services;
• support and sustain institutional capacity building in the public and private sectors.

DINNOCAP is a continuation of the DIGINNO project, which was a digital collaboration project in the BSR implemented in 2017-2020: https://www.diginnobsr.eu/. DINNOCAP will help implement innovative ICT tools, cross-border e-service solutions, and policy recommendations developed by DIGINNO, such as:

1. ICT Business Needs Assessment for SMEs in the BSR
2. Digital Maturity Recommendations Tool for SMEs
3. Digital Assessment Toolkit for SMEs
4. Four G2B Cross-Border E-Service Demonstration Models
5. DIGINNO Policy White Paper

DINNOCAP, together with partner companies and industry associations from participating countries, will seek to implement these tools and solutions in practice. In collaboration with government institutions, the project will discuss how to support these changes at the policy level. The overall outcome of DINNOCAP will be a set of innovative digital transformation tools designed to enhance the capacity of SMEs, industry associations, and policymakers.

More information about the project here.