UBL is gaining popularity in Europe and Asian country’s fast enough, but where does acceleration comes from? Probably the most influencing party in this thing is Denmark and it’s government. Since 2003 when the law was released describing electronic invoicing to government entities in UBL standard as the only way. The law didn’t give a choice for business sector in Denmark but yet it was successful decision – in the first year of use Danish government counted more then 100,000 EUR savings. So Danish example initiated work on developing NES subset of UBL 2.0 documents. Representatives from Denmark ,Sweden ,Norway ,Finland ,UK and Iceland have set up a working group for developing a NES subset of UBL 2.0 documents. The focus of NES is to define the specific use of UBL 2.0 electronic procurement documents domestically and between the member countries. The definition covers semantic interoperability within and between all business sectors, public and private. NES members are also closely involved in the international UBL 2.0 process. Further deployment of NES UBL is taken by CEN/ISSS. NES UBL is also used in e-PRIOR and PEPPOL projects in EU.

As part of the Northern European cooperation on e-commerce and e-procurement, representatives from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, UK and Iceland have set up a working group for developing a Northern European subset of UBL 2.0 documents. The main focus of NES is to define the semantic use of UBL 2.0 as applied to specific business processes. To achieve this the UBL 2.0 standard is restricted on additional levels by using “profiles” that apply to defined business situations. The use of individual elements is specifically described to avoid conflicting interpretation. Additionally each country has developed guidelines that describe the application of the NESUBL subset to domestic business practices. The goal is to enable companies and institutions to implement e-commerce by agreeing to a specific profile and thus eliminate the need for bilateral implementation. Additional countries have shown interest in joining the work. The NESUBL subset was published in March 2007.

Further development of NES has been moved over to CEN/BII workshop and will be an important tool in the PEPPOL project, Pan European Public Procurement project.