alt Hacker NewsMore accurately, 112 is the EU emergency number (and the GSM standard) but actual organization of emergency services is entirely national so who deals with your call and how will be local. The article also points out that handling of 911 is local in the US, even if apparently most 911 dispatchers are somehow subordinate to the police.
Also, like 112 forwards to 911 in the US, most cell networks in the EU will forward 911 to 112. American cultural dominance has made it so everyone knows 911 and even Europeans apparently end up dialing it.
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I wouldn't look as far as cultural dominance. If you're abroad and in an emergency, you're just going to dial the number you remember from your home country on autopilot, and there's no good reason not to support that if the number isn't already taken for something else.
> American cultural dominance has made it so everyone knows 911 and even Europeans apparently end up dialing it.
This is a ridiculous opinion.
I had a weird thing happening with that. I just returned from dinner in Germany driving through a semi-industrial area in the netherlands when I spotted a fire in one of the buildings we drove past. I called 112 and was connected to the German dispatcher and they couldn't connect me to the Dutch fire department. So they sent the German firetruck across the border and meanwhile alerted their Dutch colleagues as well. Apparently my phone had not yet re-registered with the dutch network even though we were already well across the border.