TITLE V ADMINISTRATIVE COOPERATION AND RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS CITIZENS FOR IMPLEMENTATION

F1Article 57aProcedures by electronic means

1.

Member States shall ensure that all requirements, procedures and formalities relating to matters covered by this Directive may be easily completed, remotely and by electronic means, through the relevant point of single contact or the relevant competent authorities. This shall not prevent competent authorities of Member States from requesting certified copies at a later stage in the event of justified doubts and where strictly necessary.

2.

Paragraph 1 shall not apply to the carrying out of an adaptation period or aptitude test.

3.

Where it is justified for Member States to ask for advanced electronic signatures, as defined in point 2 of Article 2 of Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures 29 , for the completion of procedures referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, Member States shall accept electronic signatures in compliance with Commission Decision 2009/767/EC of 16 October 2009 setting out measures facilitating the use of procedures by electronic means through the points of single contact under Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on services in the internal market 30 and provide for technical means to process documents with advanced electronic signature in formats defined by Commission Decision 2011/130/EU of 25 February 2011 establishing minimum requirements for the cross-border processing of documents signed electronically by competent authorities under Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on services in the internal market 31 .

4.

All procedures shall be carried out in accordance with Article 8 of Directive 2006/123/EC relating to the points of single contact. The procedural time limits set out in Article 7(4) and Article 51 of this Directive shall commence at the point when an application or any missing document has been submitted by a citizen to a point of single contact or directly to the relevant competent authority. Any request for certified copies referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall not be considered as a request for missing documents.