Single European telephone number for missing children at risk of closure

11.6.2015

Question for written answer E-009565-15
to the Commission
Rule 130
Mara Bizzotto (ENF)

A total of 15 117 children went missing without a trace in Italy in the period between 1974 and 2014, a figure which increases to 270 000 when one considers Europe as a whole. During a recent interview held to mark International Missing Children’s Day, Ernesto Caffo — president of the Italian children’s helpline Telefono Azzurro — confirmed the figures listed above, and went on to reveal that the European telephone line for missing children, which handled a total of 610 different cases in Italy between 2009 and 2015, is now at risk of closure in the wake of budget cuts implemented by the European Commission.

In light of the fact that the abovementioned single European telephone number is coordinated by the European Federation for missing and sexually exploited children — Missing Children Europe (MCE) — and that the latter’s ultimate goal is to create practices for better coordinating intervention procedures on a European level and for making said procedures more efficient, in an attempt to combat the phenomenon of missing children, how does the Commission plan to intervene to ensure that such an important tool not only remains connected, but also receives appropriate funding from the EU?