Günter Verheugen 'misleads' on metrics The European Commission is accused of misleading the public after saying it will allow Britain to retain pints, miles and ounces alongside metric measurements. The UK Metric Association (UKMA) said Verheugen's statement does not mean that traders can go back to weighing and pricing in imperial measures. Just as they do now, traders will have to weigh or measure goods in metric units (kilograms, litres or metres) at the checkout and also display prices in metric units - with the option of a supplementary indication in non-metric units. Picture: Günter Verheugen

UK Science and Innovation Minister Ian Pearson said: "We know how important this is to the British people and are grateful for the Commission's support for this use to continue. It clearly demonstrates the value of working together with the Commission to achieve our aims."

However, John Gardner, director of the pro-imperial British Weights and Measures Association, said: "I've seen the European Commission statement and what they're saying is it will be allowed to use imperial measurements as additional information. We think that the European Commission statement is extremely misleading."

Since 2000 a number of traders have challenged the legal ban on the use of imperial measures, most notably the Sunderland grocer Steve Thoburn. His criminal conviction in 2001 for selling bananas by the pound inspired the so-called 'metric martyrs' movement, who called for a Royal Pardon for Thoburn in the wake of the European Commission's announcement. Thoburn died of a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 39, days after his appeal had been rejected.

UKMA Chairman, Robin Paice, commented: "While we regret this proposal to prolong the current muddle of metric and imperial units, it will only delay but not stop the inevitable move toward all-metric shopping. Many of the big supermarkets have already stopped giving obsolete imperial prices, and we expect this trend to continue. There is no question of going backwards."

No problem

After an extensive EU-wide consultation exercise to assess the impact of Britain's use of imperial measures on the EU Single Market, Verheugen said that the results “confirmed what we always knew to be the case”, that there is no problem whatsoever with Brits drinking in pint glasses, operating in miles, or using pounds and ounces alongside their metric equivalent.

He said that the European Commission nor any faceless "Eurocrat" has or will ever be responsible for banning the great British pint, the mile, and weight measures in pounds and the ounces. The EU executive claimed that some sections of the British media have regularly jumped on the “bogus bandwagon” that maintained “with varying degrees of hysteria”, that the EU was "banning” the pint and that this was part of a wider plot against Britishness.

“We at the EU have decided the time has come to nail these myths once and for all by setting out in black and white what has always been our view: that Britain should continue to use imperial measures for as long as it likes."

Far from being a myth, opponents argued, the current EU Directive (80/181/EEC) requires that supplementary indications must be phased out after 31 December 2009 and that the UK must "fix a date" for changing to metric road signs and speed limits. However, the Commission is expected to propose that this deadline should be lifted and that the UK can keep imperial road signs for as long as it wants. This proposed amendment to the Directive will have to be considered by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers and then translated into UK law.

Traditions

Verheugen pointed out that it was the British who decided it was time to start the change to metrication as long ago as 1864, when Parliament allowed these units to be used for overseas trade - over a century before the EU even existed. Britain's Standing Committee of Metrication was set up in 1966 and the UK Metrication Board followed in 1969. There was already a plan to go metric in the sixties when the Beatles were in the Top 10 and people were buying 7-inch vinyl singles for their record players. All of this happened before Britain joined the Common Market, as the EU was then known, in 1973.

He said that, far from pushing Britain down the metrication road, Europe has always been willing to extend the deadlines, when it discovered practical obstacles and when it realised the UK public felt things were going too far, too fast.

“Brits like to get milk and beer in pints and truth be told, so do the thousands of Europeans who live in or visit the UK and love those traditions that make it so unique. Brits also like the signposts to say how many miles it is to London, Cardiff, Edinburgh or Belfast. For similar reasons there's been a long process, stretching for several decades, when many goods could be packaged, or sold in loose form, provided both metric and imperial weights and measures were clearly indicated."

Significant business cost

The Commission's proposal follows a consultation in which many American and European exporters asked that the permission to use supplementary indications should be continued.Their reasoning was that the USA requires dual metric/US customary (not the same as imperial) marking whereas the EU would have required metric-only. Thus packers would have required two different packages for the two markets, and this was claimed to be a significant business cost.

Commissioner Verheugen insisted in his statement that there are sound consumer-related and business reasons for the parallel use of dual metric and imperial weight measures on goods sold in the UK or exported to the United States.

However, UKMA has argued that, even if it is a significant cost, there is no need to allow supplementary indications on packaged goods produced and sold within the EU, and there is particularly no need to allow supplementary indications on goods sold loose in shops and markets. The derogation (exception) could have been limited to goods imported from or exported to a non-metric country - i.e. the USA.

"Why should the refusal of the Americans to accept the world system condemn the British to endure indefinitely the misery and muddle of incompatible weights and measures in shops and markets?" Robin Paice said. "It undermines consumer protection, wastes our children's education, and just prolongs this "very British mess"."

Silver lining

"Unfortunately, the Commission placed more weight on the lobbying of powerful business interests. Moreover, the UK Government, while paying lip service to metrication, has effectively called a halt to the completion of the changeover, and it is thought that they would have tried to resist the phasing out of imperial measures in 2009. Sources within the Commission have indicated that it wished to avoid a confrontation with the UK Government."

Robin Paice added, "Although this decision is disappointing, it does have a silver lining. Hitherto all discussion of the metric system has been bedevilled and distracted by the European issue. But if the EU is withdrawing from its involvement in weights and measures, it means that we can argue the case for completing metrication without having to refute silly arguments about Brussels Bureaucrats."

"Every country needs a system of weights and measures that everybody understand and uses for all purposes. Nobody needs two systems. Completing metrication is in the British national interest, and it is time that the UK Government acknowledged this and showed a bit of leadership."

The British Weights and Measures Association said it would fight on. "From our point of view the situation hasn't changed and the campaign goes on. If a trader tries to conduct his business in just imperial measurements that will be illegal," director John Gardner said.

Written by Adrie van der Luijt
source: http://dofonline.co.uk/