Description (short summary):  
The European Commission has undertaken a number of initiatives in recent years to improve the interoperability between electronic signature solutions at the European level, building on the legal framework created by the eSignatures Directive. One of these was the 2007 Preliminary study on mutual recognition of eSignatures for eGovernment applications. This study aimed to collect information on eSignature approaches in eGovernment applications in 29 countries (27 Member States and 2 candidate countries, Turkey and Croatia), which were subsequently analysed to determine interoperability barriers and potential interoperability solutions.

However, the field of eSignatures has advanced to a certain extent in recent years, including under the influence of the approaching implementation of the Services Directive and due to recent projects with an interoperability impact, like the Pan-European Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL) cross border eProcurement pilot project. For this reason, changes in the EU eSignatures domain need to be carefully monitored.

The present study therefore aims to update the available information and to assess to which extent the use of eSignatures in the EU has evolved in the past two years. The scope of the Study has also been expanded somewhat, both with respect to geographical scope (now covering the 3 European Economic Area (EEA) countries Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein as well) and with respect to subject matter (now examining inter alia also specific applications in the eProcurement, eHealth and eJustice sectors, along with newer signature technologies like mobile eSignatures and new interoperability initiatives).

Number of pages: 169

Related publication:
EU: Preliminary Study on Mutual Recognition of eSignatures for eGovernment applications