After months of raising awareness on the need to grant full access to the standardised European emergency number 112, Written Declaration n°35 on 112 for deaf, hard-of-hearing, speech-impaired users and for situations where discretion of the call is needed, with 460 MEP signatures, has been adopted by the European Parliament. 

The single European emergency phone number 112 has been implemented and proven to be effective in all EU countries. It offers advice for situations where the caller is not sure what emergency service is more adequate; it redirects the calls to the relevant services, and is easier to remember than lists of emergency numbers for each country.

This Declaration, supported by Members from four political groups in the European Parliament, sends a very clear and strong political message to the European Commission, asking to put forward legislation and standardisation proposals in order to make national 112 emergency numbers accessible through broader communication networks and services, such as text messaging and video technologies.

Marian-Jean Marinescu MEP, initiator of the Written Declaration, said: "The text messaging implementation does not pose major technical problems, and I consider it adequate to be immediately included in the functioning of the current 112 phone or phone-fax centres. Text messaging is a service that might be useful in emergency situations when discretion of the call is required."

Furthermore, he added that a new generation of a reliable 112 service has to be accessible for all EU citizens, independent of their disability or the nature of the emergency situation. The latest video technologies should be implemented so that 112 can be accessed through sign language and real-time subtitling interpretation and full access to 112 should be granted irrespective of the telephone set or the service provider used.

Ádám Kósa MEP, the first ever deaf person and sign language user to be elected as a Member of the European Parliament, added: "I hope that this record number of signatures is an obvious signal for the European Commission to accelerate the legislation procedure in this field, especially as technical devices are already available."