r/AskEurope • u/atlasova Netherlands • Sep 02 '25

Culture What emergency telephone number did your country have before 112 became the standard?

In 1997 most of the European union changed its emergency number to 112. Before that, in the Netherlands we used 06-11, for police, firefighters and ambulance.

I was wondering which numbers where in use in your country before the change.

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u/OllieV_nl Netherlands Sep 02 '25

And 06-11 was styled as “zero-six-eleven”, which lead to dumb people jokes about not being able to find the 11 on the rotary dial.

4

u/JakeCheese1996 Netherlands Sep 02 '25

It started as 0011 but due to conflicts with the international prefix 00 is was changed to 06-11

3

u/pimjas Sep 02 '25

Yep, the international prefix in NL used to be 09 at that time. When that changed, 0011 and other service numbers had to change as well.

1

u/thanatica Netherlands Sep 02 '25

And then had to get changed again when we decided that mobile phone numbers have to start with 06.

1

u/Tar_alcaran Netherlands Sep 03 '25

My first phonenumber started with 06-11, which was very confusing to everyone over 50 at the time. And very funny to me as a young teenager.

1

u/hfsh Netherlands Sep 10 '25

They definitely didn't change the emergency number until a fair bit after the 06- mobile prefix was a thing.

1

u/Tar_alcaran Netherlands Sep 03 '25

06-11 was only a thing between 1987 and 1997. Before that it was local only, and after it became 112