1a. Member States shall ensure that all users of private electronic communication networks are able to call the emergency services, or, where applicable, the internal emergency services, free of charge, by using the single European emergency call number ‘112’ and any national emergency call number specified by the Member States.

‘public safety answering point’ (PSAP) means the physical location where emergency calls are first received under the responsibility of a public authority or a private organisation recognised by the national government, whereby the ‘most appropriate PSAP’ is the one defined beforehand by authorities to cover emergency calls from a certain area or for emergency calls of a certain type (e.g. eCalls).

32. Recommends, with a view to improving the efficiency of the 112 emergency service in the EU, the establishment of an action programme to support experience sharing and exchange of best practices between the NRAs, emergency services and civil society organisations in the Member States, extending this exchange to organisations in EU candidate and neighbouring countries; suggests that, to this end, a network of experts could be set up; recommends specifically the exchange of best practices between Member States as regards the handling of 112 calls, in particular on operator training, the use of a single operator to handle a call and th ...[+++]e use of online and interpretation services that could help those who do not speak the language of the country in which they are using the emergency services;

21. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to further step up their information work so that the emergency number 112 reaches all EU citizens and travellers through the media, particularly the print and audiovisual media, by means of information campaigns such as the ‘EU-wide’ emergency number, and to organise and support promotional activities to raise public awareness and events held each year on 11 February, which has been established as ‘European 112 Day’; points out that special attention should be paid to practical information, such as stressing that 112 is the European emergency number, reachable from fixed and mobile phon ...[+++]es free of charge everywhere in the EU;

22. Notes considerable disparities among the Member States as regards knowledge of the European emergency number 112 and calls on the Member States to share their experiences and exchange best practices in order to achieve by 2020 at least 80% spontaneous identification by EU citizens of the 112 emergency number as the number to use to call emergency services anywhere in the European Union;

19. Points out that, according to the Eurobarometer survey published in February 2011, only 26% of EU citizens can spontaneously identify 112 as the number to call for emergency services in the EU and 58% of EU citizens still disagree with the statement that people in their country are adequately informed about the existence of the 112 emergency number ;