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eCertis

Reporting period:

01/2021

eCertis

Note: This page has been moved into the new Access to Public Procurement page. Please edit the content there!

Do you work for an EEA-based company wishing to participate in a public procurement procedure? Or are you a public buyer evaluating bids received from various EEA countries? If so, eCertis can help you understand what evidence your opposite number needs, or what additional information it should provide.

DisclaimereCertis is for reference purposes only and is not legally binding. It shows what kind of evidence is required to fulfil a criterion. For example, how can a supplier show to country A that it has paid taxes in country B.

eCertis and the Single Market – why does it matter?

eCertis helps:

  • suppliers (tenderers) to identify what proof they need to submit when they are awarded a contract in an EEA country,
  • contracting authorities (buyers) in EEA countries to understand which documents they can accept or need to ask tenderers for.

The Commission seeks to support both suppliers and buyers in the public procurement field by making all the information they need about exclusion grounds and selection criteria available through a single service. Accessible information is needed to help make the Single Market a reality.

eCertis in a nutshell

  • Due to a restructuring of eCertis to support multiple domains, encoded data was adjusted and simplified. This led to a drecrease of the numbers of items in the service, which now contains a total of 2095 records (criteria, items of evidence, and issuing bodies), a 15.32% decrease on last year, when the number stood at 2474. 1141 criteria (a 20.96% decrease on last year) and 673 items of evidence (a 3.17% decrease on last year) had been added to eCertis by 19 April 2021.
  • The system contains information on 281 bodies that issue certificates, meaning that 36 less issuers were registered in 2021.
  • 14 941 unique visitors in the last quarter of 2020, an increase of 2.10% on last year.
  • 14.87% of certificates can be viewed online.
  • A sample is available for 24% of the items of evidence listed in the system.

Key messages

  • A positive trend in terms of data availability by the EU countries can be noticed in eCertis, however, there is room for improvement in the provision of documentary evidence. It is necessary to continue completing the data that is missing.
  • Data remains a priority for the new Commission and eCertis is set to grow in importance, thus high-data quality will become even more essential. In view of the growing number of visits to and connections with eCertis, it is necessary that EU countries constantly update and improve the documentary evidence they provide in the service.
  • eCertis is under continuous development to increase its functionalities and to support MSs to provide better data.

Overall Performance (2 indicators combined)

 
 
 
Map Legend

Combining indicator 1 and indicator 2 gives the overall classification. It follows the rule:

  • red: If all sub indicators are red
  • yellow: If all sub indicators are yellow, or if some sub indicators are yellow and the others are red, or when 1 sub indicator is green and the others are yellow
  • green: If all sub indicators are green, or if 2 sub indicators are green and 2 sub indicators are yellow, or if 3 sub indicators are greens and 1 sub indicator is yellow

Main finding

Most of EEA countries are rated “satisfactory” in terms of overall performance.

Trends

Trends in overall performance

The graph shows overall performance in terms of data availability for exclusion grounds of all EEA countries combined since 2016.

 
Main finding

Since 2016, performance in terms of exclusion grounds has shown a positive trend. There have been no red values since 2017, while the number of yellow values in 2018, 2019 and 2020 was limited.

Performance indicators

Overview

 
Graph legend

The final classification is calculated as follows, taking into account the ‘total’ score for each indicator (last row of each table):

RedBoth sub indicators are red
YellowAll other
GreenIf both sub indictors are green or if there is a mix between green and yellow

For eCertis to be reliable, participating countries must upload all the necessary information.

2 indicators show the extent to which each country is doing this:

  • criteria completeness (how many of the criteria in Directive 2014/24/EU have been entered in eCertis for each country?)
  • evidence recorded (number of items of evidence associated with each criterion)
Categories of criteria

Data are collected in 3 categories of “grounds for exclusion”:

  • criminal convictions (EG‑CC)
  • non-payment of taxes and social security contributions (EG‑PT)
  • insolvency, conflict of interests or professional misconduct (EG‑INS).

… and 4 categories of “selection criteria”:

  • economic and financial standing (SC‑EF)
  • quality assurance schemes and environmental management standards (SC‑QA)
  • suitability to pursue the professional activity concerned (SC‑ST)
  • technical and professional ability (SC‑TP)

Indicator [1]: Criteria Completeness

The graph shows the percentage of criteria set at EU level that have been recorded in eCertis for each country. Higher scores show that countries have entered more data in the eCertis database.

 
 
Graph legend
Red≤ 0 %
Yellow> 0 %, ≤ 50 %
Green> 50 %
Main finding
  • The majority of the countries have provided at least some data on the exclusion grounds and selection criteria.

Indicator [2]: Evidence recorded

This indicator categorises the countries concerned based on the number of items of evidence recorded in the system for each type of criterion.

 
 
 

Graph legend

If the country has not entered any evidence data, the indicator is red; if it has entered more than one item of evidence, the indicator is green.

The final classification is calculated as follows, considering the “total” score for each table (last row of each table):

RedAll criteria are red
YellowA mixture of red and green values
Red: min 1, max 3 (for exclusion grounds) or 4 (for selection criteria)
Green: idem
GreenAll criteria are green
Main finding
  • All countries have provided data for most criteria categories of exclusion grounds. Information on selection criteria is still lagging behind.

Priorities

  • Foster better data quality
  • Strengthen end users’ trust in the service
  • Foster dissemination of eCertis in the EU Member States
  • Promote interoperability between eCertis and other related IT-systems
  • Facts and figures

Facts and figures

Evidence types

This graph shows the number of items of evidence that could be required and may be used in a public procurement contract in participating countries. They are broken down into 3 types: certificates, declaration on path, and self-declaration. The graph, which does not cover online evidence, shows the differences in the regulatory systems used in each country.

 
Main finding
  • Self-declarations are prevalent in some countries, such as Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Estonia, France, Latvia, Poland and Portugal. In others, certificates are the only type of evidence provided (of the 3 types shown in this graph). This is true of Iceland, Luxembourg, and Austria.

Percentage of items of evidence available online, by country

This graph shows, by country, online evidence as a percentage of all items of evidence recorded in the database. The link to the online evidence enables eCertis users to access the database and look at the evidence for themselves.

 
Main finding
  • In Iceland and Norway, half or more of all items of evidence are accessible online to buyers or bidders. Hungary and Estonia also have a high score.

Items of evidence with samples

This graph shows the percentage of items of evidence entered in eCertis for which a PDF sample is available, for each country. There may be no samples available for certain types of evidence.

 
Main finding
  • Countries with higher percentages have attached a large number of samples linked to the items of evidence recorded in eCertis. This is the case with Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta and Slovakia. Croatia and Liechtenstein have no samples available in eCertis.  

Priced evidence

This graph shows the number of items of priced evidence (items that may be accessed on payment of a fee) recorded in the system for each country.

 
Main finding
  • The following other countries charge suppliers a fee to access evidence: Belgium, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Greece, Estonia, Finland, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Lithuania Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Sweden.

Unique visitors to eCertis - per month

This graph shows the number of unique visits to eCertis per month. ‘Unique visitor’ is a term used to count each visitor to the site only once during the reporting period, so if the same IP address accesses the site multiple times, it still only counts as one visitor.

 
Main findings:
  • Visits peaked in June, September and October 2020, while March had fewest unique visitors. Unique visitors per month averaged 4633 in the 2020 reporting period.

Main IT development over the last year

There have been several recent developments in eCertis, designed to:

  • cater for multiple domains;
  • make eCertis easier to be used by adding a new homepage;
  • increase the level of automation by updating the computer interface;
  • increase the level of information by adding new concepts; and
  • gather relevant KPIs in an automated way by using a Business Intelligence (BI) tool.

More about the information system

eCertis is an online database listing the eligibility criteria and documentary evidence needed in each European Economic Area (EEA) country for companies to take part in public procurement.

Public procurement – the purchase of works, goods or services by public bodies – is regulated in these countries to ensure compliance with the principles of transparency, equal treatment and non-discrimination.

To be able to bid for a public contract, firms need to know what rules apply and what criteria they have to meet. The EU has set out these criteria in 4 legal acts:

To prove they meet the eligibility criteria (a term used for both the exclusion criteria and what the Directives call the selection criteria), companies must provide evidence documenting:

  • their suitability and technical and professional ability to perform the contract correctly
  • their lack of criminal convictions and their payment of taxes, for example an extract from the criminal records register and a tax payment certificate.

eCertis is managed by the Commission and participating countries are obliged to make sure the information in it is accurate and up to date.

Participants

All EU countries, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The database may later expand to include other countries that join the EU.

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