Besides, many standards have been created over the past 20 years, yet most invoices are still only sent as PDF.

People invent their own standard to make their own lives easier at the cost of making everyone else's lives miserable which is exactly what the European Committee for Standardization was intended to prevent.

The invoicing standard is an attempt to mitigate reverse charge fraud by gathering more machine-readable data. Some countries even demand that b2b invoices are sent to the country, which then dispatches a copy to the recipient.

Knowing this background, it's pretty clear why the EU is making it mandatory.

Personally, in the abstract I like the idea to mandate the use of an open standard, I think we have way too many inefficiencies from treating many things as text documents that could be data structures. I don't like this particular standard though, it's bloated and the result of a typical top-down process.

I much prefer it when there are competing standards for a while, and one or a couple of winner emerge on technical merits. THEN I have no objections to a regulatory body picking a standard and mandating it.

But yes, for commercial offers, presumption of conformity mean you have to pay for norms to adhere to law. Big fail.

Especially since non-commercial but persistent and public, not "for profit", is still surmised in e.g. warranty laws. (E.g. geschäftsmäßige Nutzung / usage with said two terms, even for F/LOSS)

For example, in the USA https://www.rcfp.org/briefs-comments/astm-v-upcodes-inc/

This is an especially hot topic in the EU in medical device regulations: https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/insights-and-media/insights/b...

That said, I actually agree with you - it's crazy that we need to pay for a stupid standard document.