Brussels, 10/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - Parents and children need to be able to call help quickly and free of charge while travelling in the EU, a question that has come to the fore with the highly mediatised affair concerning the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal last year. In 2007, in the United Kingdom and Belgium alone, over 7500 children were reported missing. In order to meet this urgent need, the European Commission has taken measures by reserving, at national level, six-digit numbers beginning by 116 as emergency lines for calls relating to missing children (116 000) and telephone assistance for children needing help (116 111). A new survey, for which results were published on Thursday, shows the lack of effort deployed by member states on this, which slows down implementation of the hotlines. It shows that only a minority of member states have attributed these numbers to service providers: seven countries for 116 000 and ten for 116 111. The Commission urges member states to speed up the process. Community legislation does not make it an obligation for member states to attribute the numbers but to reserve them and inform the public and providers of their existence, it states. “So far only Hungary has taken all the necessary steps to get 116 services up and running. I applaud this example, but alarm bells should be ringing in the other 26 member states. (…) The Commission has done its part of the job and hopes that it won't be necessary to start legal proceedings on a matter where there should be broad consensus”, said Viviane Reding, European Telecommunications Commissioner. The survey is available on: http: //ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/current/pan_european/index_en.htm (I.L./transl.jl)