Europe's new number, to be ratified at the ITU Plenary meeting, is expected to be 388, plus a further digit that is likely to be 3. We need this application and we believe that, with the number of call centers growing, there is a demand both for the consumer and the business side. The code was requested from the ITU by 21 European countries, including the 15 European Union member states and Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Slovenia, Slovak Republic and Switzerland. The motivation behind establishing such a code was political - it gives Europe a single identity. But there are misgivings about the new code.
Operators are concerned about the cost of implementing the service.
This is the first time that the ITU has awarded such a code to an economic region. Indeed a previous attempt to introduce a pan-European code was thwarted in May last year. One question raised then was why Europe should be awarded the code at all, and whether other regions would demand one. The awarding of a European code, however, will not preclude attempts by other regions to secure their own codes. This is not the first time, however, that enterprises have had an international dialing scheme at their disposal.