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European Order for Payment Application
Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice
Austria

The Problem

The European order for payment procedure was adopted as a Regulation and is uniformly applicable in all Member States without national transposition. The purpose of this Regulation is to simplify, speed up and reduce the costs of litigation in cross-border cases concerning uncontested pecuniary claims. The swift and efficient recovery of outstanding debts over which no legal controversy exists is of paramount importance for economic operators in the European Union, as late payments constitute a major reason for insolvency threatening the survival of businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, and resulting in numerous job losses.
However, the Regulation must be enforced by the individual Member States and their courts. This can lead to many variations as the technical resources and the procedural volume differ greatly from Member State to Member State. For a number of Member States it will hardly be economical to establish an up-to-date IT application with implied acceleration and increased effectiveness of the procedure. With a view to the technical and organizational complexity and the costs, even Member States with a larger volume of applications may have difficulties in developing an independent application for this type of procedure only. Should they decide to do so nonetheless, a lot of parallel national solutions would be generated within the EU. Against this background, the cooperation partners wish to pool their experience and their knowledge in the IT automation of their procedures and use it to the benefit of all Member States. The optimal use of the practical possibilities of the procedural provisions is crucial for the speed and ease in the processing of applications for mass procedures such as the payment procedure. This has already been shown in the cooperation partners’ experience with their national automated procedures. In order to fully seize the potential of the European order for payment procedure, it is necessary to provide an appropriate automated IT-based processing tool for EU Member States.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Within these premises mentioned in the previous answer, Austria – together with its valued project partner Germany– has developed an IT application open to every Member State.

With the exception of necessary national features the IT application for this procedure is fundamentally suitable for use in the entire EU. Furthermore, several elements of this IT system could be used mutatis mutandis and thus reduce the time and the money required for its development. The surface scheme in particular and the corresponding programming framework provided a good basis to develop templates for processing a case efficiently. The basic outline is the core of the application and can be used in all EU Member States. It is equipped with language and currency modules so it can be adjusted easily to any national environment. The application had to be adapted first to the existing infrastructure. It was prepared for use in the German and Austrian variations of electronic justice systems. The systems were, however, always built in a modular way so that other Member States have the possibility to exchange components with their own national implementation structure. Any other protocols or data flows can be added as desired and with only little effort can be used elsewhere– e.g. for other electronic justice systems. This ensures a universal usability of the developed service in all Member States without paying any license fee. Only for further developments joining countries would be expected to contribute a service charge. The application can be equipped for use in all European Member States with all their different IT infrastructures, contains language and currency modules and all necessary components for integration into portals and participation in electronic justice systems, and therefore serves the single market by providing an Instrument of cross-border e-Service.
The application was available by the time the European order for payment procedure entered into force on 12 December 2008. Thanks to its modular structure and the use of open standards, the basic version can subsequently and continuously be extended in additional steps.
The IT-based processing tool is beneficial for the courts and their staff, because their work does not have to be done in manual stages any longer and therefore becomes faster and smoother. Additionally, there is a better overview of the progress of any given procedure. All these aspects are also positive for the other parties in the procedure. Being able to receive up-to-date information from the courts easily is another great advantage for the applicants in payment procedures. Such a service also supports the companies’ call for less bureaucracy and increased efficiency. In the process of further extending the IT system (as it is done now), the parties will have improved access to the procedure. The advantages start with the possibility to receive information about the course of the procedure and the responsibilities, are followed by the electronic submission and can include tracking a procedure in real time once the system is further developed. Such an EU-wide IT application is an innovation in civil litigation procedures and further speeds it up.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The very special of this project is that justice organisations of two different states joined forces with nearly no red tape involved to realise a common IT application in the very short time of 11 months.

The organisational structure/management: There are three general cooperation partners, i.e. for Germany the Senate Administration of Justice of the Land of Berlin represented by the Local Court in Wedding and for Austria the Federal Ministry of Justice and the Federal Computing Centre. Due to Germany’s federal structure the internal responsibilities are further diversified. In addition to the Senate Administration of Justice acting on behalf of all the other federal states at the same time, the German Federal Ministry of Justice is also involved and accompanies the project.

To grant effective coordination and decision-making, the steering committee is at the top of the project bodies. The Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice, the Federal Computing Centre, the Senate Administration of Justice and (as an advisor) the German Federal Ministry of Justice convene and take the fundamental decisions in this executive body. The technical service provider is another member of the board and is represented by a senior manager. At middle project level, the project management is in charge of the project and its supervision. Executive staff of the cooperation partners and representatives of the service provider from Germany and Austria belong to the project management level. Technical staff and experts from the cooperation partners and the service providers make up the operational level and are grouped according to the different sections of the project. The judiciary officers and IT developers do the actual technical work at this level. Other Member States are kept informed through the information and advisory bodies. The evaluation of the project in the sense of assessing the results is undertaken internally among the cooperation partners. The cooperation partners decided on the following partnership strategy: Germany provided the analysis of the business processes on the basis of applicable EU legislation. In addition to that, Germany headed and still heads the consortium. Austria provided those IT modules from its own national payment order procedure that are suitable for wider use and further development. Austria also provided its special knowledge about the use of the modules and the IT automation of court processes in general. This partnership strategy guaranteed and guarantees an optimal knowledge, human resource management and affordable costs.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The European Payment Order (EuPO) solution had to follow the principles of usability. Intuitive screens and quick navigation in the user interface was a major requirement. There was the choice of either using the web technology for user interface for ease of software distribution, versus the Java rich client technology for rich user experience. We had to provide rich text processing and personal text templates. Therefore the rich user experience way was chosen by leveraging the Austrian framework for Java client technology. It allowed us, for instance, to easily provide national language support and user configurable screens and templates. Because the EuPO system must be capable of being deployed in each member state separately, interoperability with the various national systems was a major design principle. First of all it is kept independent from the relational database system product used. Second it is kept independent from the content management system for document storage. Third, it provides plug-in mechanisms to adapt any central printing facility such as the Austrian fully automated printing and enveloping system. Pluggability is also the principle used for the integration of electronic delivery systems such as the Austrian ERV (Elektronischer Rechtsverkehr) or the German EGVP (Elektronisches Gerichts- und Verwaltungspostfach). All those possible integration points are taken into account as plug-in points where the EuPO system is open for any interface adoption. The common standard for communication between computers is SOAP over HTTP in the EuPO solution. Thus the Java rich client application is fully compatible with any server technology over SOAP. Communication is kept secure and encrypted by using HTTPs with server certificates. As platform for services, actually the open glassfish application server is being used. Other open source software, such as Apache IBATIS, is used in the service components. Furthermore, the standard application programming interfaces (APIs) of the Java 5 platform are used. No proprietary API is used. As a result, there is a broad bandwidth of possible client and server platforms where the EuPO application can be deployed.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
In the year 2007 the project developing an IT application for the electronic processing of the European order for payment procedure between Germany represented by the Land of Berlin, Senate Administration for Justice, Local Court in Wedding and Austria, represented by the Federal Ministry of Justice, started. The long-time IT-experiences of both partners in the area of the national electronic processing of payment procedures (Germany even since the early eighties) enabled efficient cross-border cooperation, which is useful for Austria, Germany as well as for other countries. The partners reused fundamental parts of the Austrian justice IT-program called Automation of Court Procedures, which was created in 1986 for the national electronic processing of payment procedures and renewed in 2002. The date coming into force on 12 December 2008, the expense factor and the need to create a general solution (instead of a lot of parallel national solutions) as well as the possibility to benefit from the wide experience of the respective project partner were reasons for the chosen cooperation. A solo attempt would have been ineffective. Because of the further integration of IBM Germany, IBM Austria and the Federal Computing Centre of Austria the partnership is particularly a cross-territorial public-public one, in addition a cross-territorial public-private one.

The extension of the basic version of the pilot for electronic implementation of the European order for payment procedure is an up to date project of the Land of Berlin (coordinator), the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice, the Austrian Federal Computing Centre and IBM Germany and will include electronic data filing with access to eJustice, a plausibility check and deadline management, all mechanisms that could be explored for exchange, transfer and replication.

That the European payment order application definitely has potential for sharing good practice is confirmed in the already cited “Feasibility Study” by the European Commission (Final Report; P-01293-01- 500/MI.01.01/AR 284_JLS Order for Payment_Final_Report_v1.1.doc/V1.1), when it points out that “substantial gains and other benefits could be realised, if synergy with the Pilot Project of Austria/Germany is established”. According to this study, “some Member states (e.g. IT, UK, PT, FR, AT, SI, EE, FI, DE) already dispose of an electronic system in support of their national Order for Payment procedure or plan to implement such system in the coming years. Most of those MS would prefer to enhance their system rather than building a new one. Some Member States (e.g. HU, CY, LT…) have nothing and would be keen to receive a turnkey packaged system that they might also possibly re-use or enhance in order to support their national Order for Payment procedures. Some countries (e.g. HU, LV, SK, NL…) are closely following the works of the Council e-Justice workgroup on the electronic implementation of the European Order for Payment procedure. Those MS may decide to implement the solution developed by Germany and Austria within the context of the e-Justice program.” This analysis of the present situation emphasizes the potential for sharing good practice of the application developed by Austria and Germany in this area. France already became a project partner in the second half of 2009.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The partnership strategy between Germany and Austria guaranteed and guarantees an optimal knowledge and human resource management. When it comes to risk management, the effective partnership strategy of constant communication and consultation between the project partners combined with the organisational structure and the extensive knowledge therein guarantees the minimisation of possible risks. Furthermore, the steering committee avouches prompt decision making in cases of unanticipated occurrence of problems.

The main obstacle was the fixed deadline of coming into effect with 2008-12-12. The project even started at the end of the year 2007. The whole work was done in 2008, because the partners could reuse fundamental parts of the Austrian justice IT-program called Automation of Court Procedures.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The implementation costs are about € 1,000.000. Austria and Germany received the highest EU funding possible for the case in the amount of € 200.000. Further the project was financed by a public national funding. For the expansion stage (Release 2.0) and the connection to the national electronic legal communicaton (ERV - Elektronischer Rechtsverkehr) a funding of € 500.000 was already granted and France became a new project partner. Furthermore another funding proposal for the cross-border electronic legal communicaton was submitted.
In the whole process of developing the application it was essential that the steps for the technical implementation were in line with the legal requirements in all their details and correspond to the practical need of the parties in a payment procedure. This is why the project partners made sure that the technical work was closely assisted by legal experts who are experienced in the respective national payment procedures and have extensive knowledge of the European order for payment procedure; thereby effective management of human resources, maintenance, evaluation and knowledge was and is achieved and guaranteed throughout the whole development process.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
There are monthly statistics showing the monthly number of constantly increasing claims and their value. Moreover, Germany ran a so-called “WiBe”. “WiBe” is a framework for the assessment of economic efficiency of federal administration. This study dated 25 May 2009 clearly shows that when it comes to monetary aspects of the project, in a middle term perspective the developed application is in deed cost-effective due to the automation of the process, especially compared to the execution of the European Payment Order regulation without an EU wide IT application. The same is true in the range of quality aspects. Especially in this regard the application is a necessary tool to tap the full potential of regulation No. 1896/2006.

The numerous use of the offered IT-method is also evidence of the profitableness of the application. To illustrate: In the time period 12 December 2008 until the end of November 2009 in Austria 1.512 actions were brought in and processed, in Germany 1.823. It has to be mentioned that also the user satisfaction in the courts is remarkably good because from the beginning of the project the judges and special court clerks (Rechtspfleger) were involved in the development. The IT application provides monthly updated figures for the amount of the new cases in Germany and Austria. The statistics show a total value of all claims of about € 64.000.000 and thus an average value of each claim of € 19.100.

Furthermore the focus of this project is not only on cross-border cooperation but also on the cross-border application itself, its implementation and the sharing of good practice. Thus the “European Order for Payment Application” is not only an exceptional example of cross border partnership but also an outstanding paradigm for possibilities of cross-border e-Service and information sharing having an impact on mobility for citizens and businesses across the European Union. Since the application can be expanded to all EU member States, the impact is not only national but EU wide. As a late-breaking German Study from 25 May 2009 clearly validated, the application has a positive impact on the implementation of Regulation No. 1896/2006 in terms of monetary as well as quality aspects.

The importance of the application is also substantiated by a “Feasibility Study” done by the European Commission evaluating the possibilities for supporting the execution of the European order for payment procedure process with electronic means (Final Report; P-01293-01-500/MI.01.01/AR 284_JLS Order for Payment_Final_Report_ v1.1.doc/V1.1). In this study it is stated that “…a minimal intervention is needed in the form of a pan-European interoperability layer... The long-term vision is therefore to have Member State systems (automating national Orders for Payment), being properly adapted to cover European functionality (according to specifications provided) and interconnected through the interoperability layer. To the extent that the Community is willing to speed-up the process, it can choose between two other alternatives. These describe systems that can be readily used in the context of the European Order for Payment and which contain modules that could be re-used in national systems under development. Some of these modules can come from the existing pilot project of Austria and Germany”. The extension of the basic version of the application for electronic implementation of the European order for payment procedure is an up to date project of the Land of Berlin (coordinator), the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice, the Austrian Federal Computing Centre and IBM Germany. The extension will include electronic data filing with access to eJustice, a plausibility check and deadline management – all mechanisms that could be explored for exchange, transfer and replication.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Now there is an IT system to support the processing of the European order for payment procedure operational as an application in the local Court in Wedding and the competent district courts in Austria. It consists of a basic version and covers the fields of “case management”, “text modules”, „archiving“ and „statistics“. The processing of an application in the context of payment procedures at the courts is simplified in the following points:
- The desk officers receive an electronic “file cover page“, containing the most important procedural data which is always accessible.
- There is a “directory” of the progress of the procedure which is shown as a table. In the overview, all the stages of the procedure that have already been accomplished appear in chronological order. Court communication is permanently archived and is available for further processing.
- The „directory“ is the basis for all further steps to be taken such as developing documents, forms, memos and for cost accounting purposes. It is also used for providing up-to-date information at any time.
- A text editor helps access the text modules with standard phrases for most complaints, queries and communications. Further text modules can be generated and stored as required.
- Statistical data can be collected and processed for future evaluations of the European order for payment procedure (Art. 32 of the Regulation (EC) No. 1896/2006 ) and internal workflows.


Lessons:
To simplify cross border procedures the establishment of procedural rules alone is not sufficient. Additionally there is always the need to provide uncomplicated access to the procedures for all EU citizens and swift and efficient processing within the legal framework. Granting such an access is possible, but intense cross-border cooperation and cooperation with private partners is needed in this context.

Still, it is not always easy to stay within the legal framework and make sure, that all procedural rules imposed by a regulation are and stay obeyed. To ensure that the steps for the technical implementation are in line with the legal requirements, when establishing an IT application within the framework of eGovernment it is essential that technical work is closely assisted by legal experts experienced in the particular field.

Moreover within the development of the application it became obvious, that national IT Projects in the fields of eGovernment never lack a European dimension. So when developing new projects or pilots, it is almost inevitable to bare in mind that an application might one day also serve each and every member State and, even more important each and every EU citizen.

The application also has the capability for sharing good practice in other policy contexts. For instance the European Small Claims Procedure established by Regulation (EC) No 861/2007 is in some aspects (use of forms for filing a claim, possibility of decision making without contradictory procedure) similar to the European payment order procedure. Thus, lessons learned when developing the European payment order procedure could be used for the development of an EU wide application for the small claims procedure and other common applications.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Thomas Gottwald
Title:   Public Prosecutor  
Telephone/ Fax:   +431521522137
Institution's / Project's Website:   +431521522727
E-mail:   thomas.gottwald@bmj.gv.at  
Address:   Museumstraße 7
Postal Code:   1070
City:   Vienna
State/Province:   Vienna
Country:   Austria

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