The quality of emergency services is life-saving. For example, time spent for a citizen in distress to reach an emergency services operator and for emergency services to locate people in distress can be crucial for the wellbeing of citizens. What would happen if a citizen of a member state called 112 in another state? How easy is it for a person with a disability to contact emergency services? How can we use modern technology for the safety of citizens? These, and many others, are issues that lie at the core of EENA’s work.
In a crisis, whether natural or man-made, citizens should receive information as to what behaviour they need to adopt. This should take place in two ways: firstly, education about the subject should be provided in a preventive manner; secondly, in the case of an upcoming emergency that can be predicted, authorities need to have mechanisms to provide citizens with all necessary information as to how they should behave to minimize risks.
With an increasingly growing number of Europeans traveling across Europe, knowledge of the single European emergency number becomes of fundamental importance. Awareness is improving but remains far from being the norm around EU citizens. Moreover, large disparities between member states show that Europe has a long way to go.