Skopje, 16 November 2021 (MIA) – The European number for emergency services, E-112, is being introduced allowing citizens to dial this number to report emergencies. Through the Crisis Management Center, all police units, ambulances and fire brigades will be engaged. The phone numbers 192, 193 and 194 will remain operational as well. Crisis Management Center (CMC) director Stojanche Angelov, said Tuesday that every citizen should know the new number, highlighting the seriousness of the professional obligations the phone operators from Skopje and the other parts of the country will have. That’s why, he said, they suggested to the government, which was later approved in the Law on Managing Crises, to give the phone operators a 30-35% pay increase. “In cooperation with the Ministry of Defence, every person working in the E-112 sector will have to undergo intelligence tests, character tests, English or other foreign language tests. There will be Albanian-speaking people among the employees who will also need to speak English or another foreign language,” Angelov said. He also added that computer skills are necessary. The operator needs to guide the victim and keep them alive if their life is in danger. Dushko Petrovski, project and 112 sector manager, said that this is a European project that any aspiring EU member should implement. The goal is to implementation of the single European emergency service number in order to help the population when their lives or material goods are in danger. Launched in 2008, the Interior Ministry, the Ministry of Health, fire brigades, the Electronic Communication Agency, the Protection and Rescue Directorate are involved in the project alongside the Crisis Management Center. When Angelov took office as CMC head in 2020, six operative centers began to get reconstructed and adapted. Alongside the Skopje operational center, such centers exist in Tetovo, Bitola, Shtip, Ohrid, Strumica, Veles, and the last one will be in Kumanovo. “The Italian company Beta 80 got the tender to secure the funds and equipment, with which we are in constant communication, secures all connections, funds and IT equipment that makes 112 work, the communication between the centers, as well as the upcoming training period,” Petrovski said. This platform will signify a multilingual support of people who dial the number, regardless of what languages they speak. It will enable the support of various groups of disabled citizens as well, such as hard of hearing or deaf people, blind people, people with speech disabilities, offering them alternatives in the form of text messages or social media emergency calls. dk/ba/