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Please sign the 112 European petition to contribute in savilg lives:
Press Release 37 Members of the European Parliament support the citizens’ initiative campaign for a better 112 EENA, the European Emergency Number Association, officially launches a citizens’ initiative available at www.112petition.eu to collect 1 million signatures to make the 112 a European priority. The purpose of this initiative is to help the European Commission which announced two years ago that the “112 was a priority” to set up an official 112 day on 11/2 (February 11th), which is already the date for a national 112 day in various countries, and to call upon the Member States to improve the quality of the 112 service chain. The launching of this initiative some days before 11/2 with the official support of a weekly growing number of Members of the European Parliament marks the start of a campaign that will help to save many lives and a high amount of money. EENA has been promoting the European Emergency Number 112 since 1999, when informed citizens realized that since the year 1991 and the launch of the project, this number was not known, used and implemented in an efficient manner. Now available in every Member State, the 112 services provided are still far from European citizens’ needs… In the context of a European Union in crisis after the rejection of the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands, the idea of the 112 is a leading tool to make the European citizens feel safer within a Union that a large proportion of them find still unsafe. What element could be more symbolic than the 112 on this topic? For years, European citizens have been told that they can move freely within the Union. However, most of them still do not feel secure when they travel abroad.
Chancellor
Angela Merkel announced that the priority of the Germany’s EU
Presidency was to bring the EU and its citizens closer.
Therefore, informing the 20 million German tourists (among 33
million and many more from all EU Member States) who are
travelling abroad without knowing the 112 would be a first step.
Ensuring that a multilingual service is provided (emergency
calls are already answered in several dozens of languages in
some countries) would be a second. Is it fair that while
Belgians can be answered in Dutch if they call the 112 in the UK,
UK citizens are not answered in English in Belgium? Although the
implementation of 112 is made at the national level, it should
not be forgotten that there is a need to make sure tourists are
appropriately answered when travlling abroad. Providing high
quality caller-location would be a third step as the technology
is already fully available. Some other important improvements
should also be promoted through a strong political will such as
the implementation of a maximum intervention time and greater
network coverage (see
the action plan proposed by EENA to Commissioner Viviane Reding
when she announced the 112 as her priority).
Press
Contact:
1) Press Release image 1;
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