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(3) The multiplicity of non-interoperable standards results in excessive complexity, legal uncertainty and additional operating costs for economic operators using electronic invoices across Member States. Economic operators wishing to carry out cross-border procurement activities are often required to comply with a new electronic invoicing standard each time they access a new market. Since they discourage economic operators from undertaking cross-border procurement activities, the divergent legal and technical requirements concerning electronic invoices constitute market access barriers in cross-border public procurement, and obstacles to trade. They obstruct the fundamental freedoms and thus have a direct effect on the functioning of the internal market.

(4) Those obstacles to intra-Union trade are likely to increase in the future as more non-interoperable national and proprietary standards are developed and as the use of electronic invoices in public procurement becomes more widespread or is made mandatory in Member States.

(5) The obstacles to cross-border trade deriving from the co-existence of several legal requirements and technical standards on electronic invoicing and from the lack of interoperability should be removed or reduced. In order to achieve that objective, a common European standard for the semantic data model of the core elements of an electronic invoice (the ‘European standard on electronic invoicing’) should be developed. The standard should set out and describe the core elements which an electronic invoice must always contain, thus facilitating the sending and receipt of electronic invoices between systems based on different technical standards. Provided that they do not conflict with this European standard, existing national technical standards should neither be replaced, nor should their use be restricted, by this standard, and it should remain possible to continue to apply them in parallel with the European standard.

(6) By ensuring semantic interoperability and improving legal certainty, this Directive will promote the uptake of electronic invoicing in public procurement, thereby allowing Member States, contracting authorities, contracting entities, and economic operators to generate significant benefits in terms of savings, environmental impact, and reduction of administrative burdens.

(7) The benefits of electronic invoicing are maximised when the generation, sending, transmission, reception and processing of an invoice can be fully automated. For this reason, only machine-readable invoices which can be processed automatically and digitally by the recipient should be considered to be compliant with the European standard on electronic invoicing. A mere image file should not be considered to be an electronic invoice for the purpose of this Directive.

(8) The goal of interoperability is to allow for the presentation and processing of information in a consistent manner between business systems, regardless of their technology, application or platform. Full interoperability includes the ability to interoperate on three distinct levels: in terms of the content of the invoice (semantics), the format or language used (syntax), and the method of transmission. Semantic interoperability implies that the electronic invoice contains a certain amount of required information, and that the precise meaning of the exchanged information is preserved and understood in an unambiguous manner, independently of the way in which it is physically represented or transmitted. Syntactic interoperability implies that the data elements of an electronic invoice are presented in a format which can be exchanged directly between the sender and recipient and processed automatically. Syntactic interoperability can be ensured in one of two ways, namely through the use of a common syntax or by means of mapping between different syntaxes.

(9) There are a large number of syntaxes in use. More and more, syntactic interoperability is ensured by means of mapping. This method is effective if the invoice contains all the required data elements at the semantic level and if their meaning is unambiguous. Since that is frequently not the case, action is required to ensure interoperability at semantic level. In order to further simplify the use of electronic invoicing and to reduce costs, one of the long-term objectives should be to limit the number of syntaxes used, preferably by concentrating on those most commonly used.

(10) The standardisation of electronic invoicing also complements efforts to promote the uptake of electronic procurement as reflected in the relevant provisions of Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and Directive 2014/25/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council .

(11) The European Council, in its conclusions of 28 and 29 June 2012 and 24 October 2013, stated that priority should be given to measures aimed at further developing cross-border online trade and the modernisation of public administrations, including by facilitating the transition to, and through the swift implementation of, electronic invoicing.

(12) The European Parliament, in its resolution of 20 April 2012, pointed at market fragmentation resulting from national rules on electronic invoicing, underlined the substantial benefits offered by electronic invoicing and stressed the importance of legal certainty, a clear technical environment and open and interoperable electronic invoicing solutions based on common legal requirements, business processes and technical standards. For these reasons, the European Parliament called for making electronic invoicing in public procurement mandatory by 2016.

(13) The European Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Electronic Invoicing (e-invoicing), set up by Commission Decision of 2 November 2010 , unanimously adopted a Recommendation on the use of a semantic data model to support interoperability for electronic invoicing in October 2013.

(14) This Directive should apply to electronic invoices received by contracting authorities and contracting entities and issued as a result of the performance of contracts to which Directive 2009/81/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council , Directive 2014/23/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council , Directive 2014/24/EU or Directive 2014/25/EU applies. Only electronic invoices issued by the economic operator to whom the public contract or concession contract has been awarded (the main contractor) should be covered by this Directive. However, when Member States provide for direct payment to subcontractors pursuant to Article 71 of Directive 2014/24/EU and Article 88 of Directive 2014/25/EU, the arrangements to be determined in the procurement documents should include provisions concerning whether or not electronic invoicing is to be used in respect of payments to subcontractors. It should be clarified that, when a contract is awarded to a group of economic operators, this Directive applies to electronic invoices issued both by the group and by the individual economic operators.

(15) This Directive should also apply to concession contracts involving payment which require invoices to be issued by the economic operator to whom the concession contract has been awarded. The term ‘concessions’ is defined in point 1 of Article 5 of Directive 2014/23/EU. The object of concessions contracts is the procurement of works or services by means of a concession, the consideration of which consists in the right to exploit the works or services or in that right together with payment.

(16) This Directive is subject to Article 346 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. This Directive does not apply to electronic invoices issued as a result of the performance of contracts (declared secret or accompanied by special security measures) which are excluded from the scope of Directive 2014/23/EU, Directive 2014/24/EU and Directive 2014/25/EU pursuant to Articles 10(6), 15(3) and 24(3) thereof respectively. Under the same conditions, a specific exclusion should be provided in this Directive for electronic invoices issued as a result of the performance of such contracts (declared secret or accompanied by special security measures), which fall within the scope of Directive 2009/81/EC.

(17) The definitions used in this Directive should be in line with other Union legislation on public procurement.

(18) The Commission should apply the relevant provisions of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council to request that the relevant European standardisation organisation draft a European standard on electronic invoicing. Pursuant to the relevant provisions of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012, the Commission's decision laying down such a request is subject to the examination procedure referred to in Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council .