20/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - Following a decision on 15 February that member states must reserve six figure telephone numbers starting with 116 for social services in Europe, the European Commission launched a public consultation exercise on 20 March which will end on 20 May 2007. The consultation aims to come up with a list of services which would be allowed to use these 116 telephone numbers. The Commission would then decide which type of services would be allowed to use which numbers, and the member states would then allocate specific numbers to specific services of their choice. (gc)