Press Release: Pints and miles will not disappear due to European Commission proposal

The United Kingdom and Ireland will be allowed to keep units like the pint of beer and milk - and miles, yards, feet and inches on roads. The proposal is also important for the current trade relations with the United States as the European Commission has proposed to indefinitely extend the use of supplementary indications next to metric units. The Commission proposal is based on the results of a public consultation in early 2007, which underlined the smooth functioning of the Directive 80/181/EEC. It allows that both metric and other measurements can continue to be used in the UK and Ireland, if so desired.