Brussels deciding on action against Malta for 112 service

The European Commission has yet to decide whether or not to take disciplinary action against Malta for the high rate of unanswered calls to emergency line 112.

In November, The Sunday Times reported that one in three phone calls to the locally-operated 112 line between January and June 2009 remained unanswered. Other EU countries had an unanswered percentage rate of between zero and 6.5 per cent.

The Maltese statistics were furnished to the newspaper by the police upon request but did not seem to feature in a report the government had to submit to the European Commission.

When the story broke, Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil put a parliamentary question to the Commission to see what it plans to do about the issue.

In January, the Commission replied, saying it had demanded clarifications from the Maltese government and set a deadline.

"Depending on the response received, further actions may be considered by the Commission, including infringement proceedings if necessary..." the Commission had said.

Before the stipulated deadline, Malta replied arguing that one of the reasons that the number of unanswered calls "may appear to be high" was the significant percentage of hoax calls or calls reporting the same incidents at the same time.

A spokesman for the European Commission said it was analysing Malta's reply in detail. "Following this assessment, the Commission will decide on what would be the appropriate follow-up with the Maltese authorities," the spokesman said.

However, the Commission said it was still "not aware of specific statistics published by the Maltese authorities" as these were not part of the reports sent to the Commission.

"We would be glad if you could let us know the sources from which you got the figures for unanswered calls as this could assist the Commission in establishing a clearer picture of Maltese compliance," the spokesman asked said, even though the police have been open about the statistics in Malta.

Just last month, Police Commissioner John Rizzo admitted that part of the clogging was due to administrative calls by police officers themselves and that such abuse was being tackled through an internal circular calling for the lines to be left free.

Mr Rizzo said the rate of unanswered calls had reached an all-time low of 45.75 per cent in 2007 but was cut to 22 per cent in the last part of 2009 thanks to the internal memo.

He said the number of call consoles had increased from three to six.

cperegin@timesofmalta.com