Officials complete work on plan to delay metric labelling deadline

Date: 16/07/1998

By Peter Chapman

THE European Commission is poised to launch formal proposals to give industry up to ten more years to ensure labels on goods sold in the EU only carry measurements in the metric system.

This follows concerns that industry inside and outside the Union is not ready for the 31 December 1999 deadline for removing labelling in other units, such as the US and UK Imperial systems, from goods on sale in the EU.

Experts from member states and industry told the Commission at a meeting in February that they would welcome a move to give firms more time.

A spokesman for Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann said the institution was now ready to launch proposals and would do so later this month.

"Effectively all that is needed is to add a sentence to the existing directive adding the time period for the delay," he said.

"But it is important to stress that we are only talking about a delay. The need to show all measurements in metric only cannot be put off for ever."

The spokesman declined to say how long a period the Commission would propose, but other EU sources suggested ten years was likely, even though some companies have been pushing for an extra 20 years.

They said the institution was anxious to get the proposals approved by member states and the European Parliament before MEPs were distracted by next June's Euro-elections.

The current labelling rule book allows firms to put two or more sets of measurements on their goods which correspond to the units in use in the markets where they are sold.

The impact of the metric-only rule will be felt most by companies from the US and EU which export goods to each other's markets.

They will have to produce separate labels and other documentation such as instruction manuals for goods which currently carry two sets of measurements.

Production and distribution processes will also have to be adapted to carry separate batches of goods destined for each market.

Industry says the delay is urgently needed because the US is still nowhere near completing its own plan to switch to metric measures.

The American Electronics Association (AEA), whose members, including IBM and Texas Instruments, produce goods such as microchips, disk drives and computer monitors which are usually measured in inches, said the precise cost to industry of the change-over was difficult to calculate but would certainly run into millions of ecu.

"The Commission came to see us about this issue and told us they were likely to propose a ten-year delay," said Malcolm Bermange, chairman of the AEA's standardisation and certification working group.

"Many of the AEA companies would have a real problem if there was no delay. In the States, you have to have both sets of measurements by law so it makes a lot of sense to go on allowing both in the EU."