scope:

The present document defines a profile for Qualified Certificates, based on the technical definitions in RFC 3739 [4], that may be used by issuers of Qualified Certificates complying with Annex I and II of the European Electronic Signature Directive 1999/93/EC [1].

This Qualified Certificate profile and the IETF Qualified Certificate profile RFC 3739 [4] address Qualified Certificates within different contexts and therefore also use the term Qualified Certificate with slightly different meanings. While the IETF profile uses the term Qualified Certificates within a universal context independent of local legal requirements, this profile uses the term to explicitly describe a Qualified Certificate as defined in the European Electronic Signature Directive 1999/93/EC [1].