In praise of emergency services

Working under extreme stress, often with poor means, they are the first to support an upgrading.

Members of emergency services have often criticized EENA’s ideas of quality standards for answering and handling of calls to the 112 as well as evaluations by independent organisations. «How is it possible to implement quality standards and guarantee a maximal intervention time, when we do not dispose of adequate resources to do our job?», the president of the Belgian fire-fighters declared recently in a radio debate. And of course he is right. One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, goes the old French saying. Resources are certainly needed. And several emergency services all over Europe have been requesting improvements of telecommunications infrastructure and means.

It goes without saying that when EENA promotes the idea of an efficient 112 service chain, it does not pretend that this can be done free of charge. In our recent reply to the Commission’s consultation on the future of the telecommunications regulatory framework we even made some suggestions about the financing of the 112 operation. Either the telecom operators should be obliged to cover the costs in the context of the license (authorisation) they get to operate the networks. Or the Commission should issue guidelines for cost evaluation and allocation, following the example of the US which introduced legislation on this issue (the Ensuring Needed Help Arrives Near Callers Employing 911 or ENHANCE 911 Act), to provide the funding for the upgrading of 911 call centres. EENA could also support a cost allocation model involving the subscribers to networks through a small fee (e.g. 1 € per invoice) for the provision of services by the emergency services, on the condition that these services will be provided on the basis of high level quality standards concerning answering and handling of calls, intervention times, evaluation etc.

EENA has also been promoting interdisciplinary dialogue on common standards for emergency telecommunication systems. During the first two European 112 conferences we invited all interested parties to deal with the issue. We almost created a EU Forum for emergency telecommunications with BAPCO – an initiative that was unfortunately aborted for reasons we never understood. We are happy to participate actively at the PSC Forum which was subsequently created by emergency services and the industry and to be co-organising the 1st European Security and Safety Summit – to which all emergency services are invited.

But above all EENA supports the idea of high quality services provided by emergency services to EU citizens. Nobody can really claim that the quality of these services is the same in Scandinavia as it is in Southern Europe. Improving the quality of services provided in Southern Europe on a similar basis with this of the North will certainly benefit above all the citizens and the members of emergency services in the South more than it will benefit the tourists from the North. After all, tourists come and go - the locals are there to stay …

EENA also supports the idea presented by the European Commission in October 2005 for an exchange of best practices between emergency services of the different Member States. Relevant fora for such exchanges do exist (various EU committees, ETSI-EMTEL, etc.) but apparently emergency services rarely participate. However, EENA’s contacts in emergency services within Member States indicate that they are very often frustrated when for example they do not have the tools available to their colleagues elsewhere in the EU (localisation, multilingual support, etc.). Sometimes EENA is shocked to realise that of emergency services with solutions to common problems are unable to share them with their colleagues while at the same time other less important subjects are debated with questionable results in numerous meetings and workshops financed with taxpayer money. Is this the reason why the 112 is still one of Europe’s best kept secrets? EENA could not think of any valid reason why the issue of the 112 is still such a low priority or even ignored at EU level.

EENA believes that if emergency services are interested in improving the services they offer they need to start collaborating at EU level in view of establishing a common position with the citizens in mind. Using emergency telecommunications in general and the 112 in particular could prove an interesting test bed. It may be the only way they can persuade the elected politicians or bureaucrats who propose resource allocation to give them priority. It may be the only way to ensure that they are no longer underpaid, understaffed and under trained. It may be the only way to ensure they will get modern equipment that will make their everyday life easier and maybe less stressful. It sure is the only way to get the support of citizens, all over Europe to their cause. Furthermore EENA strongly believes that such a pan-European approach can lead to new European success stories, similar to the introduction of the GSM mobile telephony system, Galileo, the Airbus and others.

A first step to achieve this collaboration could be taken through the participation at the 1st European Security and Safety Summit in Brussels (6-7 June 2007).

Incompetent, indifferent or just cynical?

Why the Commission is not dealing with the 112 in a citizen-friendly way

When in 1989 the European Commission first proposed the creation of a single European emergency call number, its main argument was to serve Europe's citizens moving around in the single market created on the basis of the Single European Act, the work of then president Jacques Delors. However, the Commission neither promoted nor enforced the implementation of the 112 number. On the contrary, it left the issue almost unattended and thus the last Member State to report implementation was Greece in 2000 instead of the initial deadline of 1992 (and for countries asking for a derogation 1996). In fact the Commission even went so far as to report again and again to the European Parliament and the Council that the implementation of the 112 never faced a problem.

The first Eurobarometer on the knowledge of the 112 was conducted in 2000 and the results announced in May 2000 in the context of the first workshop on this issue ever held by the Commission (in collaboration with Luxembourg). The results, 9 years after the establishment of the 112 were unacceptable - only one in every five European knew about the existence of the 112 and they were mostly people from the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and Portugal which have established the 112 as their unique national emergency call number. The proposals of the workshop were introduced in the new Universal Service Directive (article 26)and became EU laws in 2002 (Member States were obliged to transpose them by 2003). They included mainly the obligation for transmiting caller location information and for informing citizens about the existence and use of the 112. The older obligation of 1991, that calls to the 112 should be «appropriately answered and handled» was just carried over without changes. And in 2003 an evaluation of the complete 112 service chain conducted in Portugal (which was considered a model country as far as the implementation of the 112 was concerned) showed catastrophic results : 20% of calls in French, 29% of calls in English, even 15% calls in Spanish and Portuguese, never received help on the spot of the emergency!

At the same time several complaints were introduced with the Commission either through parliamentary questions or through the EENA (which introduced a series of complaints beginning 2004). Now the Commission adopted a different approach. The Parliament was told that there were too many problems to launch an information campaign. And that the Commission was only competent to ensure that calls were «appropriately answered and handled» as far as the telecommunications component was concerned. If the call is answered by somebody, the Commission is happy, no matter if the victim dies because the call wasn’t properly handled and help never arrived. The Commission even declared itself incompetent to deal with the full 112 service chain, because, it said, emergency services do not fall under its jurisdiction but are under the sole responsibility of national governments.

So is the Commission incompetent? Certainly not. The existing Treaty (articles 152, 153) provide that all Community policies should ensure a high level of human health and consumer protection, something that is not really ensured when the Commission declares that the 112 is a purely telecommunications issue. When the Commission is launching initiatives for the protection of minors from the harmfull content available on the internet, or for the regulation of smoking and deep sea fishing,victims of accidents who call the 112 certainly deserve a better service.

Is the Commission indifferent? One could hardly say so. Following the complaints of the EENA the Commission opened several infringement procedures against Member States which have not yet implemented the transfer of caller location information to the emergency services. It also launched (and relaunched) eCall, an ambitious project aiming at installing from 2009 onwards (now from 2010) on every new car a system which would call the 112 in case of a crash. And in 2005/2006 launched a new Eurobarometer survey which shows that only one in every three Europeans is now aware of the 112, a significant improvement compared to the survey of 2001 (although the questions asked were smoothly guiding the answers ...).

And is the Commission cynical? Oh yes! And very much so! In fact it is pushing only for the issues that concern industry (telecommunications for localization and car industry for eCall), ignoring the services provided to citizens. Each time the EENA tries to bring the issue of evaluation of the 112 service chain from the citizens' point of view or the issue of informing the public about the existence and use of the 112, the Commission's reply is a categorical NO - while all the Commissioners pay lip service to the need for initiatives to bring Europe nearer to its citizens. At the same time, while implementation of the (obligatory) 112 is lacking, the Commission rejoices about the creation of (non obligatory) «services of social value» for important, but non the less marginal, emergencies.

EENA believes that only when citizens start showing interest in their proper protection, the Commission will start paying more attention to the proper implementation of the 112 in the EU. We invite you to sign the petition and ask your friends and relatives to sign too! And, if you are still alive, please tell us your (happy or sad) personal story on the service you got when you called the 112. We will transfer it to the Commission in the context of a complaint - the Commission cynically pretends that it does not receive enough complaints on this issue ...

Serving EU’s citizens in emergencies – the challenge of the 112

Ensuring better emergency services throughout the EU is the next big challenge

Having an accident in Spain or in Italy during the holidays may prove a very bad experience. Having the accident and not knowing which number to call may turn this experience into a nightmare. Calling the 112, the single European emergency call number, and not being understood because the operator does not speak your language, may be fatal.

The 112 was established in 1991 in the context of the universal service proposed to citizens as a counterbalance to the Single Market. In 2002 the Universal Service Directive consolidated the legal aspects in this field. And all Member States have since reported to the Commission that the 112 has been implemented. However, some well informed citizens mention that very little has been done in this major issue, and sometimes too late. Of course some countries like Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Spain, The Netherlands, Portugal and others have even abolished their old national emergency numbers and adopted the 112 as their national emergency number. Others, like the UK and some regions of France, have implemented intelligent systems with on-duty interpreters to serve people who do not speak the national language. Still others have implemented the caller localization even for calls from mobiles – a technology that can save some 5.000 lives all over Europe when fully implemented.

But globally, the 112 service cannot yet be considered an EU success story. Out of 3 European citizens, only 1 knows about the existence of the number, while in some countries this percentage is even less. Localization is globally not implemented; as many call centers need to be modernized in order to be able to use location data transmitted by telephone operators. And no common quality criteria have ever been established, less enforced, concerning the fact that calls to the single European emergency call number "112" have to be «appropriately answered and handled» as provided for in the legislation in force.

The European Emergency Number Association has been striving to improve the quality of the services associated with the 112. Through conferences, debates, petitions, complaints, letters and other actions, the EENA has already put the 112 on the political agenda of the European Parliament. The European Commission has followed up some of the EENA’s complaints by opening infringement proceedings against several Member States for not implementing the EU legislation correctly. The EENA is actually collecting signatures from citizens in order to ask the EU to go a step further and offer a high quality 112 service to its citizens.

Taking care of citizens in emergencies on the basis of common EU wide standards should be the next step towards the establishment of a real citizens’ Europe. Launching an initiative to this end would be the best proof that the Europe imagined by the founding fathers 50 years ago can become a reality.

Help EENA make a difference in this field. You or your beloved may need an efficient 112 someday in the future. Act now to ensure that such an efficient number is considered a priority by the EU.