''The metric system is better by miles'' Tony Blair, 2001
.
The metrification drive inches closer to commercial catastrophe.
If one were to say that these words are being typed onto a 15-inch computer screen, most people would understand, because this is a worldwide standard. In three years' time, however, under EU law, it will become a criminal offence for Dell, Apple and other computer firms to describe their screen-sizes in inches.
.
In all advertising, packaging and so forth a 15-inch screen will have to be relabelled as "381 millimetres". It will similarly become a criminal offence to sell shirts in inch collar sizes; for garages to provide air pumps measuring tyre pressures in pounds; even to employ the notation used to size sutures and ligatures in an operating theatre, because this is not based on the metric system.
.
Last Thursday representatives from a wide range of industries, from clothing, tyres and white goods to healthcare, food and drink, met officials at the Department of Trade and Industry to discuss the massive worldwide problem that now looms because of the ban, from January 1, 2010, on any use in the EU of what are called "supplementary indications": ie translations of metric units given to help those who need them.
Last Thursday representatives from a wide range of industries, from clothing, tyres and white goods to healthcare, food and drink, met officials at the Department of Trade and Industry to discuss the massive worldwide problem that now looms because of the ban, from January 1, 2010, on any use in the EU of what are called "supplementary indications": ie translations of metric units given to help those who need them.
.
An array of organisations, speaking on behalf of thousands of firms in America and in the EU itself, have sounded the alarm over the almost unimaginable costs and complications this will entail (not to mention the safety implications).
An array of organisations, speaking on behalf of thousands of firms in America and in the EU itself, have sounded the alarm over the almost unimaginable costs and complications this will entail (not to mention the safety implications).
.
The objection is not so much to the EU's wish to enforce universal use of the metric system within the EU as its attempt to ban any reference to non-metric units to assist understanding.
.
John Gardner of the British Weights and Measures Association (BWMA), who helped set up last week's meeting, reports that the DTI is sensitive to the difficulties this will cause, and will be joining bodies such as Orgalime, representing a quarter of all Europe's manufacturing firms, in pressing the European Commission to extend beyond 2010 the period when it permits continued use of "supplementary indications". The EU Commission is soon to issue a consultation paper on the issue.
John Gardner of the British Weights and Measures Association (BWMA), who helped set up last week's meeting, reports that the DTI is sensitive to the difficulties this will cause, and will be joining bodies such as Orgalime, representing a quarter of all Europe's manufacturing firms, in pressing the European Commission to extend beyond 2010 the period when it permits continued use of "supplementary indications". The EU Commission is soon to issue a consultation paper on the issue.
The BWMA will this week publish the results of its latest poll, commissioned from a leading marketing organisation, which shows that less than only 10 per cent of Britons support an end to the right to use non-metric units, and less than a fifth of the population say they use the metric system exclusively.
.
Small businesses in the UK may well be wondering what pressure the Federation of Small Business (FSB) is applying to the EU Commision from its offices in Brussels. The FSB has a long standing policy of opposition to compulsory metrication.
.
If the Commission is mindful of the damage this ban could do to the EU's image, it should start listening hard to what the world is trying to tell it.
1 comment:
Since 1983, I have been ready for BS-EN13402, which calls for metric. I think this would be extremely odd for someone in the USA to be ready for a clothing size label from the U.K., 20 years before the standard was drafted. In 1992, my weight went metric, and my GPS is set for metric units, and from 1984, have been using Celsius for weather reports.
Post a Comment