Statute

1. Scope

FESA (Forum of European Supervisory Authorities for trust service providers) was founded in 2002 with the aim to support cooperation among bodies responsible for the operation of systems of supervision as defined in Art. 3.3 of Directive 1999/93/EC¹.

With regard to the Regulation (EU) No 910/2014² (eIDAS), FESA intends to continue ist work, contributing to the establishment and improvement of a comprehensive cross-border and cross-sector framework for secure, trustworthy and easy-to-use electronic transactions in the European Union.

Supporting the idea of the Digital Agenda for Europe, FESA - as association of the European supervisory bodies according to Art. 17 of the eIDAS - sees itself as experienced and competent body that supports the cooperation, information and assistance among the members and facilitates the exchange of views and agreement on good practices corresponding to Art. 17 (4) a), c) and Art. 18 (1) of the eIDAS.

FESA intends to advance the harmonization of the supervisory bodies' activities, to develop common points of view for the dialog with political or technical institutions, in particular the European Commission and standardization institutions, and to establish a levelled European playing field for trust service providers in terms of supervision.

The Forum is no legal entity. Performing their supervisory activities the members cannot be bound by decisions of the Forum.

2. Full Members

The following institutions are invited to become full members of the Forum:

a) national bodies responsible for supervision according to Art. 17 of the eIDAS from all European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) member states,

b) national bodies responsible for establishing, maintaining and publishing national trusted lists according to Art. 22 (3) of the eIDAS from all EU and EEA member states,

c) comparable bodies from EU candidate states, and

d) upon unanimous vote, comparable bodies from other countries that have transposed or intend to transpose the eIDAS. Each member decides on ist representatives in the Forum.

At the beginning of each year full members who did not send representatives to the last year's meetings and did not participate in the discussions on the mailing list will be asked by email whether they still want to be a full member or like to change to the status of an associate member. If the members remains inactive (e.g. does not answer to this request within one month) the member's status is set to associate member.

The Board keeps a directory of the full members of the group. The simple majority of the full members present at the assembly of the Forum decides in cases of doubt about a membership.

3. Associate Members

National bodies responsible for supervision or for establishing, maintaining and publishing national trusted lists from countries that are not members of the EU or the EEA and are not EU-membership candidates or national bodies responsible for voluntary accreditation or approval schemes with regard to products or services comparable to those within the scope of the eIDAS regulation, may apply for associate membership if they have an interest in discussing the matters within the scope of the Forum (Art. 1).

The applications may be granted by a unanimous vote of the members present at the assembly of the Forum.

The European Commission, the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) have the rights of associate members.

Associate members may attend the assembly of the Forum and have similar rights to the members, except that they do not have the right to vote, cannot be elected to the Board and have no access to the member´s mailing list and the member's area of FESA´s Website. Upon request of a member, the Board can decide that specific issues must be discussed only among full members.

Full members that wish to keep an observing status can become associated members on request or in cases of permanent inactivity (see 2)

4. Guests

The Board can invite guests according to the agenda of a meeting.

5. Assembly of the Forum

The Forum meets regularly. The Board invites for the meeting of the assembly at least two times a year or if five members request it. Invitations must be sent at least one month in advance.

6. Setting up of documents and publications

Following the Forum´s intention to advance the harmonization of the supervisory bodies' activities, to develop common points of view for the dialog with political or technical institutions and to establish a levelled European playing field for trust service providers in terms of supervision, FESA aggregates all member´s opinions with regard to specific topics. The board has the duty to try to harmonize differing positions and to create consolidated documents that can be published as harmonized view of the members.

FESA members agree that the board will create documents and where appropriate publish these documents as a harmonized FESA position, if this has been legitimated by a positive vote of 2/3rd of the full members. The agreement is checked by the board following the voting procedures. If no agreement about a harmonized view of FESA can be reached, e.g. because the time is too short for regular voting procedure, the board will publish the separate opinions of those members who agree that their view will be part of a publication that will make transparent the authorship.

7. Decisions of the Forum

Each full member has the right to vote and has one voice.

The Forum can decide using either presence or written voting procedure for one topic.

Presence voting is possible, if all full members have been invited and the topics for decision have been included in the invitation. For decisions which require a unanimous vote, at least 2/3rd of the full members must cast their votes. Only full members that are represented at the assembly have the right to vote. Members can transfer their voice to another full member.

The Forum can also decide using the written voting procedure. The decision about the use of the written voting procedure is made by the Board and announced using electronic means. In this case, the proposal to be decided upon is distributed to the members by the Board along with the announcement. The Board also sets a deadline not shorter than 14 calendar days from the day of the announcement for voting. For decisions which require a unanimous vote, at least 2/3rd of the full members must cast their votes. Members may cast their votes using electronic means. Within five days after the deadline, the Board officially announces the result of the voting procedure and publishes the final text of the decision adopted, if any. During the deadline, any full member has the right to request the use of the presence voting procedure. In this case the written voting procedure is terminated without result and the issue is examined at the next meeting of the assembly.

Approval or modifications of this statute must be decided unanimously.

8. Board

The Board consists of a chair and two secretaries. Each Board member must be a representative of a Forum full member.

The Board is elected by the Forum. The three members of the Board are elected separately. The Forum decides whether the votes are given open or by ballot.

If a candidate does not get the simple majority of valid votes in the first vote, a second election decides among the two candidates with the most votes. If only one candidate is nominated, this candidate needs the simple majority of attending members.

The Board is elected for a period of two years beginning with the day of the election. Board members can resign at any time. A Board member loses ist function, if it stops being a representative of a Forum member or if the Forum member leaves the Forum. When a Board member resigns or loses ist function, a new Board member is elected for the rest of the period. At any time, the Forum can decide to elect a new Board (Art. 5).

In case it is not possible to elect a chair until the end of a regular period, a temporary chair for the period until the end of the next meeting may be elected by the Forum.

9. Duties of the Board

The Board shall

a) call the assembly of the Forum and prepare the meeting in cooperation with the hosting member,

b) decide on the agenda of these meetings and select persons for moderating the discussion,

c) invite guests to the meetings according to the agenda and the Forum's statute,

d) take and distribute the minutes of the meetings,

e) try to harmonize differing positions and to create consolidated documents that can be published as harmonized view of the members.

The Board comes to ist decisions unanimously and is represented by ist Chair.

¹ Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 1999 on a Com-munity framework for electronic signatures, OJ L 13, 19.1.2000, p. 12

² Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC, (eIDAS), OJ L 257, 28.08.2014, p. 73

2002-06-17, 1st amendment 2005-03-01, 2nd amendment 2005-06-21, 3rd amendment 2006-10-20, 4th amendment 2008-11-05, 5th amendment 2010-04-14, 6th amendment 2016-07-01, 7th amendment 2019-10-17