SkarpChapter 12 of 17
Fee Revenue and the Proposal’s Digital Requirements
Joint procurement and EuroCloud are designed to finance substantial parts of their own administration, but participation and cost recovery introduce uncertainty. Alongside that revenue model, the proposal creates a broad inventory of digital processes involving applications, notifications, audits, repositories, and platforms.
1. Reading the Revenue Section: What Is Being Funded?
Status first
As of 20 July 2026, CADA is a Commission proposal submitted on 3 June 2026, not an adopted Regulation. Learn the supplied text as proposed law.
Assigned revenue
Section 3.3 records a revenue impact and says revenue is assigned to expenditure lines: fees are earmarked for specified scheme costs.
Joint procurement forecast
DG DIGIT: EUR 0.000m in 2028, then EUR 3.027m in 2029, rising to EUR 7.001m in 2034.
Federation forecast
DG CNECT: EUR 0.000m in 2028; EUR 2.940m in 2029; a EUR 5.880m peak in 2031; then EUR 2.570m annually from 2032.
2. Joint Cloud Procurement: Where the Fee Revenue Goes
The funded object
Joint-procurement assigned revenue supports the brokerage system: its operational costs, external staff, tools, and systems.
Average 50%
Around 50%: studies, research, community-management tools, communication and collaboration support, technical enablers, and platform integration.
Average 30% and 20%
Around 30%: develop and maintain platforms, marketplaces, and management tools. Around 20%: specialised external staff, including FinOps and ContractOps.
Demand-led allocation
The percentages are average allocations. Spending follows effective demand needs and is intended to cover only operational and brokerage-system-linked expenditure.
3. Joint Procurement Fee: Calculation, Limits, and Accountability
Payers and methods
Participating contracting authorities pay. The procurement document may use a pro-rata transaction fee or a flat fee per subsequent awarded contract.
Annual cycle
Fees use a yearly consumption forecast, are collected before contracts are executed, and are recomputed yearly for expected workload and incurred costs.
Hard cost-recovery ceiling
"The fees charged to the participating contracting authorities shall not exceed the verifiable costs incurred by the Commission."
Worked projection
EUR 300m of spending × 2% = EUR 6m. The text uses "an average annual fee rate of 2% applied to the spending per authority."
4. EuroCloud Federation Fee: Ramp-Up, Cost Sharing, and Break-Even
What members fund
Members fund establishment and management of EuroCloud, including membership assessment, platform-enabled sharing, external experts, hosting, and security tooling.
Deployment cost profile
Development is highest initially. From year 4, costs cover operations, technical support, and upgrades. External quality assurance is estimated at around 10% of procurement value.
Participation path
Assumed uptake: 20%, 40%, 60%, around 80%, then full participation across years 1 to 5. No full membership fee applies in year 1.
Exact fee assumptions
"the membership fee could be set at around EUR 75 000 per member" and later "reach around EUR 30 000 per member once full capacity is achieved."
5. Assigned Revenue: Boundaries, Justification, and Financial Risk
Why earmark fees?
Assigned revenue is presented as predictable funding for defined cloud-ecosystem objectives, including idle-capacity sharing and procurement economies of scale.
Budget-principle rationale
The text says targeted expenditure supports universality and unity, while transparency, reporting, evaluation, consultation, and non-discrimination provide safeguards.
Exact exclusion
"Administrative costs, on the other hand, will not be covered by the assigned revenue." Only operational costs of the two initiatives draw on fee revenue.
Risk treatment
No procurement fees means no procurement system and no major costs. EuroCloud risk is reduced by prior studies, Member State interest, and existing MFF funding.
6. Digital Dimension I: Strategies, Capacity Data, Recognition, and Audits
How to read Section 4.1
The table maps a legal requirement to actors, high-level process, and digital category. It is an inventory, not a technical implementation manual.
Strategies and projects
Article 7 requires strategy notification. Article 14 requires designation applications to contain necessary, relevant evidence that criteria are met.
Capacity-gap monitoring
Article 15 covers Union compute capacity, including edge capacity; data-centre demand; and the capacity gap. The process is data collection.
Recognition and evidence
Article 17 uses an application. Article 19 allows public Level 1 self-assessments. Articles 20-21 address audits for Levels 2-4 and reliable evidence.
7. Digital Dimension II: Repository, Notifications, Registers, and Cooperation
Article 22 repository
"The Commission shall establish and maintain a dedicated repository of cloud computing services that have received recognition against a Union assurance level."
Public visibility and 5 years
Authorities register audited services. Revocations must be published for 5 years. The repository is public, easily accessible, and regularly updated.
Article 23 notification chain
Providers notify auditors and national authorities; auditors notify national authorities and the Commission; authorities notify peers and the Commission when recognition changes.
Registers, cooperation, risk
Articles 24-25 cover penalty-rule notifications and a public authority register. Articles 27, 89, and 29 cover data exchange, cooperation, and risk assessments.
8. Digital Dimension III: Platforms, Procurement, and Open-Source Reuse
EuroCloud platform: mandatory
Article 34: "The Commission shall establish a platform for the EuroCloud Federation." It is labelled a digital solution and digital public service.
Procurement platform: optional
Article 37: "The Commission may establish and manage a common procurement platform". "May" authorises; it does not impose the same duty as "shall."
OSS reuse route
Article 42 requires eligible open-source software to be available on a catalogue or repository connected to the EU OSS Catalogue.
Central catalogue
"The Commission shall provide and maintain an EU Open Source Solutions Catalogue" on the Interoperable Europe portal, deciding connection requests.
9. Flashcards: Numbers, Actors, and Digital Tools
Flip each card, answer aloud, then check whether you used the proposal's exact distinction between mandatory and optional actions.
- When does collection of both fees start?
- The stated starting date is 2029, allowing an initial setup process.
- What cost ceiling applies to Joint Procurement fees?
- "The fees charged to the participating contracting authorities shall not exceed the verifiable costs incurred by the Commission."
- What average Joint Procurement fee rate is projected?
- "an average annual fee rate of 2% applied to the spending per authority."
- What are the EuroCloud membership-fee reference points?
- "the membership fee could be set at around EUR 75 000 per member" and "reach around EUR 30 000 per member once full capacity is achieved."
- How long must a recognition revocation remain published?
- 5 years in the central register.
- Which Article 34 action is mandatory?
- "The Commission shall establish a platform for the EuroCloud Federation."
- Which Article 37 action is optional?
- "The Commission may establish and manage a common procurement platform".
- What spending is excluded from assigned revenue?
- "Administrative costs, on the other hand, will not be covered by the assigned revenue."
10. Quiz: Fee Logic and Cost Recovery
Choose the statement that most accurately reflects the Joint Cloud procurement fee mechanism in the supplied text.
Which statement is correct?
- The Commission may charge any amount necessary to build a surplus for later procurement activities.
- Fees are based on a yearly forecast, collected yearly before contract execution, and must not exceed the Commission's verifiable costs.
- The fee is permanently fixed at 2% of every authority's spending and cannot change if participation increases.
- The fee must be collected in 2028 because that is the first year in the revenue table.
Show Answer
Answer: B) Fees are based on a yearly forecast, collected yearly before contract execution, and must not exceed the Commission's verifiable costs.
The text says fees are computed from a yearly forecast of beneficiaries' consumption, perceived yearly before contracts are executed, and recomputed each year. It also imposes the verifiable-cost ceiling. The 2% figure is an average projected rate that would decrease proportionately if total spending increased. Collection is stated to start in 2029, not 2028.
11. Quiz: Identify the Correct Digital Obligation
Test your ability to distinguish an obligation to establish a public digital service from a discretionary power to create a platform.
Which pairing correctly matches the proposal text to its requirement?
- Article 22: recognition revocations are published for 1 year; Article 37: the procurement platform must be established.
- Article 34: the Commission may establish EuroCloud's platform; Article 43: software must be hosted outside the Interoperable Europe portal.
- Article 22: the Commission maintains a public repository of recognised services; Article 37: the Commission may establish and manage a common procurement platform.
- Article 19: Level 4 self-assessments must be publicly available; Article 20: no independent audits are possible.
Show Answer
Answer: C) Article 22: the Commission maintains a public repository of recognised services; Article 37: the Commission may establish and manage a common procurement platform.
Article 22 requires a public central repository of services recognised against a Union assurance level, with revocations remaining published for 5 years. Article 37 uses "may" for the common procurement platform. Article 19 concerns optional provider self-assessments for Union assurance level 1, while Article 20 allows independent audits for levels 2, 3, and 4.
Key Terms
- FinOps
- A specialised staff function listed in the Joint Procurement allocation examples, associated with financial operations for cloud-related services.
- ContractOps
- A specialised staff function listed in the Joint Procurement allocation examples, associated with managing contractual aspects.
- cost recovery
- The principle that charges cover relevant costs rather than generate a considerable surplus. The text places a verifiable-cost ceiling on Joint Procurement fees.
- EU OSS Catalogue
- The centralised catalogue, hosted on the Interoperable Europe portal, for accessing reusable open-source software made available by Union entities and public sector bodies.
- assigned revenue
- Revenue earmarked to finance specified expenditure. In this text, fee revenue is assigned to expenditure connected with Joint Procurement and the EuroCloud Federation.
- brokerage system
- The system supporting the Joint Procurement scheme, including operational support, tools, systems, and specialised external staff.
- central repository
- The public, regularly updated repository of cloud computing services recognised against a Union assurance level, established and maintained by the Commission under Article 22.
- EuroCloud Federation
- The proposed European public sector cloud federation, including services and a platform for sharing relevant capacity and services.
- Union assurance level
- A level of assurance for which a cloud computing service provider may seek recognition; the text addresses self-assessment at level 1 and independent audits at levels 2, 3, and 4.
- contracting authority
- A participating authority that pays the Joint Cloud procurement service fee under the proposal.
- national competent authority of establishment
- The national authority associated with the provider's establishment that receives recognition applications and has repository and notification roles in the text.