CEN

European Committee for Standardization. The body that publishes European Norms (EN) — for e-invoicing, the publisher of EN 16931.

Definition

The CEN (Comité européen de normalisation, European Committee for Standardization) is an international not-for-profit association under Belgian law, based in Brussels. With CENELEC (electrotechnical) and ETSI (telecoms), it forms the triumvirate of the three bodies officially recognised by EU Regulation 1025/2012 to produce European Norms (EN).

CEN brings together the 34 national standardisation bodies of the 27 EU member states plus Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Norway, Iceland, North Macedonia and Serbia. For France: AFNOR. For Germany: DIN. An EN norm published by CEN becomes a national norm in each of these countries — and conflicting national norms must be withdrawn.

Origin

CEN was founded in 1961 by the national bodies of the six EEC and EFTA countries. Its scope extends well beyond EDI: materials, construction, product safety, food, etc. In EDI/e-invoicing, its competent technical committee is CEN/TC 434 (Electronic Invoicing), created in 2014 on mandate from the European Commission (M/505) following Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement.

Example in context

When the European Commission mandates CEN to produce an e-invoice standard usable in public procurement, CEN/TC 434 drafts and publishes EN 16931-1:2017 — Electronic invoicing — Part 1: Semantic data model of the core elements of an electronic invoice. The EN then defines the minimum elements of an invoice in purely semantic terms (buyer, supplier, line, tax), independent of syntax. Member countries adopt it as a national norm (in France: NF EN 16931-1).

Related terms

• EN 16931 — the European e-invoicing norm produced by CEN.
• CEFACT — the UN counterpart.
• PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 — the de facto European implementation of EN 16931.
• CIUS — national restriction of EN 16931.