Introduction

Objective and scope

The objective of this document is to provide the person in charge of the XML generation with the information necessary for integration of the schemas.

There are three schemas foreseen to cover the 40 situations listed in the eForms Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2022/2303):

  • Prior Information Notice (PIN),

  • Contract Notice (CN), and

  • Contract Award Notice (CAN).

The schemas are based on OASIS UBL v2.3 with some extensions for eForms-specific information.

Codelists, validation rules and technical integration are outside the scope of the present document; although, if there are references to some Business Rules or codelists in this document, these will not be discussed in detail.

The Regulation

A regulation on Public Procurement (eForms) has been drafted, proposed, adopted and published in October 2019 [R1], then amended and the amended version published in November 2023 [R4]. It replaces the Implementing Regulation from November 2015 [R2].

eForms is part of the Single Market Strategy of the European Commission [R3] and will help collect, manage and analyze procurement related data; this will populate a meaningful source of information for Member States to support their initiatives on Public Procurement Governance improvement with amplified efficiency, transparency and integrity.

Some aspects that the Regulation is intended to address, are:

  • increased information accuracy;

  • forms simplification;

  • extended flexibility (e.g. ability to nationally: adapt labels to regional preferences, enforce the use of some optional fields);

  • closer consistency (amongst forms and with other documents based on the same standards),

  • intensified flexibility with specifications at Lots level;

  • improved governance with identified sellers and buyers, as well as a limited number of policy related information;

  • balanced transparency-competition aspects with justified private information;

  • simplified process for Corrigenda publications;

  • use of a procedure identifier for a better Business Opportunities identification.

Background information

In addition to the Regulation, the following have been considered for the schemas development:

  • The published UBL 2.3 schemas[1];

  • The detailed spreadsheet corresponding to Annex II of the eForms Regulation[2];

  • The numerous discussions undertaken during the different consultations[3] with the collected information regularly integrated by DG GROW in the Annex II;

  • The outcome of the eProcurement Ontology workgroup activity[4];

  • The approaches adopted for other UBL based data (ESPD, eInvoicing …​).

About this document

This document is divided in different sections:

  • Sections 1 to 3 with introduction of general concepts, and

  • Sections 4 to 7 more technical.

The choice has been made to be as concise as possible using tables and cross references. Navigation between text and tables, or tables and sections is possible with a "Ctrl" + click and back navigation with "Alt" + "←".

Synthetic approach and readability concerns lead to the expression of some elements usage in a table format. In these tables, the expressed cardinality does not substitute the one of the Regulation, it is only a mean to highlight the different occurrences that may be needed for some elements at specific places for a given document type. As a kind of synthesis of the requirements for all situations covered by a document type (i.e. all columns of the Regulation Annex that a given schema intents to cover), the cardinality is more generic and may lack the precision required by the Regulation and that the validation rules will verify.

Codelists and validation rules are out of the scope of this document even if they are referenced sometimes.

Some codelists justified by the technical design of the schemas[5] won’t appear on EU Vocabularies, they will however be documented and provided with the necessary artefacts required for data validation.

To clarify the usage of some elements, some validation rules had to be stated; these do not however cover the whole set of validation rules applicable which will be provided at a later stage.

Regarding illustration, samples have been provided using 2 linguistic versions; this has been done for clarification purpose regarding encoding of multilingual notices. There is no requirement to have exactly two such linguistic versions.

References

  • [R1] Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1780 of 23 September 2019 establishing standard forms for the publication of notices in the field of public procurement and repealing Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/1986 (eForms) (Text with EEA relevance) , Official Journal of The European Union, OJ L 272, Oct. 25th, 2019, pp. 7 - 73, available at http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2019/1780/oj, accessed January 27th, 2020.

  • [R2] Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/1986 of 11 November 2015 establishing standard forms for the publication of notices in the field of public procurement and repealing Implementing Regulation (EU) No 842/2011, Official Journal of The European Union, OJ L 296, Nov. 12th, 2015, pp. 1 - 146, available at http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2015/1986/oj, accessed January 27th, 2020

  • [R3] Communication From The Commission To The European Parliament, The Council, The European Economic And Social Committee And The Committee Of The Regions, Upgrading the Single Market: more opportunities for people and business, Oct. 28th, 2015, 23 p., available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52015DC0550, accessed January 27th, 2020

  • [R4] Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2303 of 24 November 2022 amending Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1780 establishing standard forms for the publication of notices in the field of public procurement (Text with EEA relevance) , Official Journal of The European Union, OJ L 305, Nov. 25th, 2022, pp. 12 – 50, available at http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2022/2303/oj, accessed January 24th, 2023.