15 Member States (as well as 3 other European countries) and more than 80 companies and organisations and have already signed the eCall Memorandum of Understanding. Now, eight more member states join this group of contries.

eCall is an in-car system that automatically dials 112, Europe's single emergency number, when a car has a serious accident and sends its location to the nearest emergency call centre – even when passengers do not know or cannot say where they are. Rolling out this life-saving system throughout the EU could save up to 2,500 lives annually and reduce the severity of injuries in up to 15% of accidents in which people are injured.

8 EU Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Luxemburg, Poland and Romania) and several transport organisations (OptoTelematics, DEKRA, Eurosmart, European Road Transport Safety Council, GMV) have signed the eCall Memorandum of Understanding, launched in September 2009, and thereby commit to implement the eCall system.

The Commission originally called for eCall to be rolled out voluntarily across Europe by 2009 but although the technology is ready and common EU-wide standards have been agreed by industry, the system was delayed due to lack of support from some EU countries due to cost related concerns.

Preparing phone networks and emergency services for the roll out of eCall in cars across Europe does have the full support of the European Parliament and 15 EU countries who hadsigned the eCall Memorandum of Understanding.

So far Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland have committed to the deployment of eCall. eCall also has broad support among Europe's emergency service providers, the automobile industry and telecoms operators.

The deployment of eCall at an EU level would not only save lives but could annually save considerable sums of money. The system is estimated to cost around €100 per new car.

The Commission has supported research that makes sure the eCall system works in different Member States (E-MERGE and GST-Rescue) and has called for industry cooperation with its eSafety Initiative. eCall is one of the priorities of the Intelligent Car Initiative and the Intelligent Transport Systems Action Plan promoting the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to achieve smarter, safer and cleaner road transport.