GREECE, Italy, Lithuania and Slovakia are the latest countries to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) under which all new cars in Europe are to be equipped with automatic emergency call (eCall) technology as soon as 2009.

This is in line with an action plan agreed by the European Commission and industry in February this year. The eCall MoU has already been signed by Finland and Sweden.

The system works by calling the emergency services in the event of a crash using a single European number, 112, which reports the vehicle’s exact location.