Brussels, 02/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - Sixty members of the European Parliament from across the whole political spectrum signed an open letter on 27 May to Digital Economy and Society Commissioner Günther Oettinger about the European emergency number 112 which is still not advancing as well as it should. The letter highlights the importance of the emergency number and the need to do more to roll it out.
EENA, the European Emergency Number Association, has welcomed the MEPs' initiative. “The Members of the European Parliament showed today that they are working actively to advance the safety and well-being of citizens”, stated Gary Machado, EENA executive director.
The MEPs highlight:
Raising awareness: the member states and the European Commission need to intensify efforts to inform citizens about the European emergency number;
Caller location: implementation of Article 26.5 of the universal service directive (2009/136/EC) by many member states remains problematic and use of already available technology (such as advanced mobile location or AML) in order to provide citizens with better caller location needs to be more widespread; the directive states that 112 calls must remain “free of charge, from any telephone, including public pay telephones” and that “undertakings concerned make caller location information available free of charge to the authority handling emergency calls as soon as the call reaches that authority”;
Access for persons with disabilities: too little attention is currently being paid to facilitating access to 112 for people with disability;
Cross-border cooperation: better collaboration between member states and neighbouring emergency services is needed. (Isabelle Lamberty)