History

Version 1.x of the ESPD was developed in 2016 in response to the 2014/24/EC Directive on Public Procurement, which introduced the concept of the ESPD. Version 1.x was developed adopting UBL 2.1. The latest 1.x version was v1.0.2, released in July 2016.

Initially, the European Commission developed an online ESPD Service for buyers and suppliers which was subsequently discontinued as member states started to develop and bring online their own ESPD services.

The first version of the 2.x family, v2.0.0, was released in July 2017. Version 2.0.2 was released in May 2018, version 2.1.0 in January 2019, and the latest version in the 2.x family, version 2.1.1, in December 2019. The versions 2 introduced the adoption of the UBL 2.2 XSD schema, development of the ESPD-EDM specification, the use of UUIDs, expansion of the code lists used, and a self-contained regulated ESPD criteria taxonomy.

Version 2.1.1 included a mapping of the TOOP requirements in the (UBL 2.2) schema, extended code lists, new UUIDs, changes in the criteria taxonomy and the implementation of the decision to no longer make national grounds mandatory.

Version 3.01 was released in February 2022. The major version(s) 3.x adopted UBL 2.3.

The distribution package folders were reorganised in the GitHub repository.

ESPD-EDM conceptual model with business and technical eap and xmi file views were made available, and a html version of the UML conceptual model was provided for download.

Several code lists were updated, as was the interoperability test bed ESPD validator.

Documentation on request cardinalities, root elements, lot management, and several other topics was updated.

Version 3.1.0 was released in December 2022, 3.2.0 in May 2023, and 3.3.0, in July 2023, extending and improving the clarity of the models.

In each version, the criterion Excel file was updated, and a few github issues resolved. In the XLT files, use cases were updated, templates were refactored, and attributes were updated for xml samples.

Several code lists were updated, as was the interoperability test bed ESPD validator, as in the last update.

Some inaccuracies in the documentation were corrected, relevant sections added and several attribute values were also updated.

Details can be found in the release notes of each version.

Version 4.0.0 of the ESPD-EDM was released in September 2024.

The main change in this version was the replacement of dynamic UUIDs with XML Path like IDs in ESPD data structure elements.

The details of other minor changes can be found in full in the release notes.

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