The European Commission has launched the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom 2019–2 call, making €25 million available to stimulate and sustain the deployment of European Digital Service Infrastructures (DSIs) in the areas of Cybersecurity, eHealth, eProcurement, European e-Justice, European Platform for Digital Skills and Jobs and the Public Open Data. In 2019, CEF Telecom aims to provide up to €88 million in total funding for 18 DSIs, in order to meet the needs of public administrations, businesses and citizens in their cross-border activities.

The CEF Telecom 2019–2 call aims to support the following areas:

  • Cybersecurity – €10 million to increase the cybersecurity capabilities of actors that are fundamental for a State’s cybersecurity, such as National Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs), Operators of Essential Services (OES), National Competent Authorities (NCAs) or Single Points of Contact (SPOCs);
  • eHealth – €5 million to improve cross-border healthcare access and services using ICT tools, specifically to make ePrescriptions and Patient Summaries widely available in the EU;
  • eProcurement – €1 million to simplify public procurement procedures and processes, as well as to facilitate the participation of both suppliers and buyers in them;
  • European e-Justice – €3 million to ensure that citizens and businesses can rapidly reap the practical benefits of e-Justice tools;
  • European Platform for Digital Skills and Jobs – €1 million to support the equipment of  individuals and the labour force in Europe with adequate digital skills;
  • Public Open Data – €5 million to achieve better services for citizens and public administrations thanks to the re-use of public-sector information deploying innovative solutions.

Interested applicants from all EU Member States, as well as Iceland and Norway, may submit their proposals until 14 November 2019, 17:00h Brussels time through the dedicated proposal submission system, accessible from the individual call webpages on the 2019 CEF Telecom Calls web page. All the call documents and additional background information are also available on the individual call webpages. The Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) is the contact point for this call.

A Virtual Info Day on the 2019-2 CEF Telecom call and application process will take place on 10 July 2019. Participants can register here.

The indicative planning of the upcoming CEF Telecom 2019 calls is available here. Examples of successful CEF Telecom supported actions are available here.

The support to the implementation of eForms as through eProcurement DSI is postponed to 2020 when the relevant technical standards will be published. The BRIS call for Generic services is also postponed to 2020 due to delays in the development of new functionalities linked to the central payment system and the interconnection of the beneficial ownership registers.

About Digital Service Infrastructures (DSIs)

CEF Telecom funding supports projects of common interest for the deployment of Digital Service Infrastructures (DSIs) across the EU. These are based on mature technical and organisational solutions to support exchanges and collaboration between citizens, businesses and public authorities. The vision is to create European networks of digital services that will make the Digital Single Market work in practice.

CEF supports basic and re-usable digital services, known as building blocks, as well as more complex digital services. The building blocks can be combined with each other and integrated with the more complex sectoral services. CEF Telecom has an overall budget of €1.04 billion (2014-2020).

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Source and photo credits: European Commission