What is new in OpenPeppol Elections for 2025

The following changes with respect to previous years have been decided by the Managing Committee in its MC192 meeting of 29 January 2025:

1. APP CMB – its composition is extended from 4 persons to 6 and the term duration is prolonged from 2 to 3 years, so that each current member gets one more year and this year we elect two new members. This will ensure continuity at a time when the APP CMB gets a new important responsibility to act as a Compliance Board. These changes take effect in 2025, implementing the MC decision in its MC189 meeting of 20 September 2024.

2. Security Committee – The initial arrangement of soft appointment of members by PAC and SPC was good enough for getting this new body started, but better ownership and legitimacy is needed as the SEC is about to have a more important role in future years. For this reason, the Managing Committee decided in its MC192 meeting of 29 January 2025 to call for proper elections by the PAC and SPC.

3. PoAC CMB – Two more seats are added, and its composition increases from 4 to 6 members. The rules of election will stipulate that at least two PA representatives should be elected regardless of the absolute number of votes, as long as there is a sufficient number of candidates representing PAs. This decision was taken by the MC in its MC192 meeting of 29 January 2025, in order to ensure that PAs are represented in this important CMB, which has not been the case to date.

4. Further to the specific provisions for the PoAC CMB, a general principle is established from 2025 going forward about the minimum guaranteed representation of Peppol Authorities and Service Providers in all Change Management Boards of Domain Communities. More specifically:

   1. At least one Peppol Authority and one Service Provider representative must be included in each Domain Community Change Management Board, provided that candidacies from these Stakeholder Communities have been submitted and validated by the Election Committee. For Change Management Boards with more than five members, at least two Peppol Authority and two Service Provider representative must be included, provided sufficient candidacies have been submitted as described above.

   2. The Operating Office must respect this principle before calculating election results, and the Election Committee must uphold this principle before validating the results. This process may involve adjusting the ranking of candidates according to the absolute number of votes received.

5. Terms and condition for eligibility of candidates – There are now better clarifications of the type of working relationship the candidates must have with the members that propose them, and a new condition on Directors’ Ban:

   1. The candidates proposed by an OpenPeppol Member should have a regular and organic professional relationship with that member. They should not be contracted specifically, or mainly for the purpose of getting elected and they should not have working relationships with more members, beyond the one that proposed them.

   2. The candidates for a Managing Committee position should not have a Directors’ Ban.