During a ceremony hosted by European Commissioner Viviane Reding on 9 September 2009, the Director of the GSM Association Europe, on behalf of the mobile communications industry, signed the eCall Memorandum of Understanding, which has the goal of extending the application of the in-vehicle emergency call service across Europe. eCall automatically dials 112, Europe's single emergency number, when a car has a serious accident and sends its location to the nearest emergency service - even when the passengers do not know or cannot say where they are.
According to statements made by the European Commissioner responsible for telecommunications, there are six Member States which have not yet signed the Memorandum - Denmark, France, Ireland, Lithuania and the United Kingdom. As a result, ''they should now take their foot off the brake and speed up the introduction of a system that can save lives. Otherwise, the Commission will need to propose legislation next year.''
It should be noted that fifteen countries of the European Union, including Portugal, as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, have agreed common arrangements for implementing eCall. Another 6 EU countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Luxembourg, Romania and Poland) support eCall and are willing to sign the agreement.
Further information:
- Saving more lives on Europe's roads: mobile phone operators sign up for eCall roll-out http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1290&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
