On 6 May 2026, ETAF published its position on the European Commission’s proposal for a Regulation establishing European Business Wallets, part of the broader Digital Package.
ETAF welcomes the European Business Wallet (EUBW) initiative as an important step towards reducing administrative fragmentation and simplifying cross-border interactions for businesses and professionals across the EU. ETAF supports the proposal’s ambition to make doing business in the EU simpler and less costly, and notes positively the extension of the EUBW to self-employed individuals and sole traders.
ETAF also supports the proposal’s provisions on digital mandate and representation management under article 5(1)(j) and calls for existing national power-of-attorney infrastructure to be integrated into the EUBW framework rather than replaced. The once-only principle should apply broadly, so that information validly submitted via the EUBW is not re-requested through another channel, while implementing acts should support mandate lifecycle management and multi-user rights management within professional firms.
ETAF further supports the principle of legal equivalence under article 4 and the mandatory acceptance obligation on public sector bodies under article 16. ETAF also considers that the wallet-by-default principle should serve as a tool for burden reduction and should not lead to new digital reporting obligations or parallel submission channels. Finally, ETAF considers it useful for Member States to work towards allocating a European Unique Identifier to all economic operators and public authorities not yet covered, in order to support a coherent identification framework for the effective use of the EUBW across the Single Market.
