Your pint safe in EU hands

11 September 2007

European Commission Today the European Commission has gone that extra mile to save the Great British pint, the mile, the pound and the ounce for as long as Britain wishes to do so. Under proposals launched today, EU law will be changed to allow indefinite use of units like the pint of beer and milk, miles, yards, feet and inches on roads and weights in pounds and ounces.

Günter Verheugen, EU Commission Vice President responsible for enterprise and industry, said: "Our proposal is designed to honour the culture and traditions of Great Britain which are important to the European Commission. People in the UK and indeed throughout the EU love the traditions that make Britain unique. There is no good reason why these imperial measures should not continue to be used and we've decided to enshrine this fact in EU law. We can all drink to that!"

Long before joining the 'Common Market' as the EU was known in 1973, the UK took steps to 'go metric'. The Metric Weights and Measures Act of 1864 authorised the use of metric measurements in contracts and dealings. As part of an impetus to modernise, in 1965 the British government of the time took the decision to implement a gradual change to metric units at the request of British industry. The UK Metrication Board was established in 1969 and in that same year the education system started moving towards metric units.

As a fully-fledged member of the EU, Britain subsequently supported and agreed to EU legislation establishing the legal units of measurement for expressing quantities, in accordance with the metric "International System of Units" (SI) adopted by the General Conference of Weights and Measures set up by the Metre Convention in 1875. This SI metric system is recognised under as the international standard for international trade.

The EU law (Directive 80/181/EEC) was necessary to ensure a common approach, removing the barriers to trade within the British-inspired EU Single Market due to units of measurement in line with the international standard.

Since then, at the request of the UK, the Commission has consistently granted it more time to complete the full transition to the metric system through derogations, the latest of which expires in 31 December 2009.

To end this cumbersome practice, the Commission proposes to allow the UK and Ireland to keep the current exceptions without requiring these countries to fix a date for ending them. The exceptions concern the pint for milk in returnable bottles and beer and cider on draught, the mile for road signs and speed indications and the troy ounce for transactions in precious metals. The exception of the acre for land registration is no longer in use in either country and will be repealed. Finally the Commission clarifies the scope of the directive as being applicable to all domains covered by the current Treaties. It is therefore no longer necessary to single out certain fields of applicability.

Stakeholders were consulted during the 10-week period up to 1 March 2007. The proposal follows the unanimous recommendation of industry to lift the sundown clause for the United Kingdom and Ireland and to permit indefinitely the use of supplementary indications.

Background

The Directive allows the United Kingdom and Ireland the use exemptions and requires them to fix a date in order to phase these out. However, experience showed that these usages are local without any impact to the single market and not any impediment to cross-border trade.

All reactions and the documents of the public consultation are available on: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/prepack/unitmeas/uni_ms_en.htm

For further information

For additional information, please contact the European Commission's London press office on 020 7973 1971.