1) 112 is the European emergency number available across EU member states, but EU emergency services are unable to interoperate or contact each other except for a few cross-border initiatives. 2) In 2009, EENA created a database with long phone numbers of emergency call centers to allow EU countries to communicate, and in 2017 19 countries participated. Feedback shows the database is increasingly useful. 3) A case study described a Lithuanian emergency service receiving a call about a truck driver in Belgium experiencing heart problems - they used the EENA database to contact the Belgian emergency service in Antwerp and an ambulance was dispatched.

1. Transnational
emergency calls
Presenter
Jérôme PÂRIS
Managing Director
EENA
09/02/2017

2. 112 and the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC)
State of the art
2
112 is the European emergency number available in all the EU Member States
BUT
EU emergency services are unable to interoperate and to contact each other
besides few cross-border initiatives.
What does it mean?
on the phone with who has an accident and cannot call emergency services
In country A In country B
calls 112 and reaches in country A
can hardly contact in country B
 Quite a gap in the universal service…

3. 112 and the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC)
EENA’s initiative to fill the gap
3
In 2009, following many requests from its emergency
services members, EENA created a database with long
phone numbers of emergency call centres so that EU
countries can communicate with each other.
In 2017, 19 countries participate to the initiative.
Feedback collected in 2016 shows that the DB is more and
more useful

4. 112 and the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC)
Case study
4
On 13 January 2017, Lithuanian 112
services received a call from a manager
of a Lithuanian logistics company.
The caller reported that he was
contacted by a truck driver of his
company who was experiencing heart
problems; he was somewhere in
Belgium but could not get out of the
truck on his own.
The company manager provided the coordinates of the driver, who appeared to
be on the A13 highway at some 24 km away from Antwerp.
The Lithuanian 112 call-taker quickly retrieved the emergency centre contact
from the EENA database and called the Belgian contact point in Brussels.
After explaining the situation, the call-taker was put through with the
emergency centre in Antwerp. An ambulance was dispatched to the scene and
arrived approximately 15 minutes later.

5. 112 and the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC)
Issue
5
Several countries (and not the smallest ones) do no share
their long phone numbers because:
• EENA is not a public body
• EENA is an NGO and does not have the means to keep the DB
as secured as it should be
e.g. sensitive phone numbers gathered in a DB gathered in
an Excel sheet stored on Dropbox could easily be hacked

6. 112 and the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC)
What could be done
EU legislation should ensure a Database of long phone
numbers is managed securely by a public body at
European level!
6

7. Thank you!
Contact information
Jérôme PÂRIS
jp@eena.org
Questions?