On 11 October the European Commission gathered representatives from the 25 Member States with responsibility in civil protection and electronic communications, in a conference on the 112 single European emergency number. The event also had representatives from the EEA (European Economic Area) and of candidate member States.
The main purposes of the conference were an update on the implementation and operation of the service, the identification of challenges to be met and the sharing of best practices among Member States in answering 112 calls.
It was underlined that the growing mobility of European citizens, mainly due to business travels and holidays, turns a reliable European-wide emergency service into a vital utility. Although it is already possible to call 112 from any fixed or mobile telephone in all 25 European Union’s (EU) Member States, there are still several problems in answering emergency calls to this number. Among these, the lack of capacity to deal with all the necessary languages stands out, as well as the unavailability of technology to geographically locate people calling from mobile phones and the low public awareness of this emergency number.
Thus, the Commission called on Member States to invest additional resources to solve the logistic and linguistic problems that were identified and to inform citizens of the emergency number.
Commissioner Viviane Reding underlined that the development of a reliable and efficient emergency service through 112 is part of EU’s “European Information Society 2010” (i2010) strategy and that this matter will be one of her priorities. In connection with it, she announced the setting of an expert group to analyze this service and the launch of a communication campaign to raise general public awareness for the benefits of 112.
Further information:
- Saving travellers' lives: Commission urges Member States to improve their responses to 112 emergency calls http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/1239&format=PDF&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
- Discurso da Comissária para a Sociedade da Informação e Meios de Comunicação, Viviane Reding: '112, the single European Emergency Number: the need for action' http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/05/596&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
- Perguntas frequentes sobre o número de emergência europeu 112 http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/05/363&format=PDF&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
- Factsheet: 112 - the single European emergency number http://europa.eu.int/information_society/doc/factsheets/044-112_en.pdf
