On Tuesday, the European Parliament's Industry committee has voted to endorse a proposal by the commission aiming at imposing mutual recognition if e-signature mechanisms in the Internal Market.
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| The official Dutch way to e-signature |
The proposal would require member states to mutually recognise each other's
national electronic identification systems, but also require that such systems be reported to the European Commission. Existing national systems would accordingly not
have to change, but would be classified according to their level of security.
This should make it easier for parties negotiating cross-border contracts to identify themselves. Even more importantly, EU citizens moving from one country to another should be able to "carry along" their e-signature and use it to interact also with public administrations different than the one which has issued it.
The negotiations on the future instrument, which interestingly enough seems like a piece of secondary legislation aiming at negative integration without any previous harmonization effort, will probably begin next month.
