As the unelected Commissioners in the EU set ever more rules and regulations down to the minutest detail which affect the lives of millions of consumers, traders and public bodies overseas based businesses exporting to the European Union (EU) have been warned that displaying both metric and imperial measures on products is set to become illegal.
Suppliers from the USA, Australia and Asia have until January 1, 2010 to change their packaging, catalogues and anything else so that it displays only metric measures if they want to sell their goods in the EU including the UK. Our own Trade watchdogs will no longer have say in the goods imported from our trading partners as Brussels sets the rules.
The warning comes from the British Weights and Measures Association (BWMA) which said it was concerned that many international businesses were unaware of what was happening.
"Asian and Australasian businesses need to know that the display of US, British imperial and industry-specific measurements alongside metric could be illegal in the European Union in less than three years' time," BWMA said in a statement.
The European Commission (EC) is currently seeking business views with submissions closing in three weeks.
Currently, businesses operating in the European Union can use US or imperial measures alongside metric measures for all economic purposes. That includes product packaging, websites and catalogues.
Illegal information
But under an unnecessary EC Directive, “extra measurement information” will become illegal within the EU from the start of 2010.
BWMA director John Gardner said a ban on US and British units affected not only UK and US businesses but those from all other parts of the world.
He said the ban would apply to all products, packaging, advertisements, instructions, brochures, magazines, books, e-commerce, internet sites, internal business processes and catalogues and no-one would be exempt.
"If the ban on US and other measurements alongside metric goes ahead, Asian and Australasian industry will be forced to duplicate manufacturing processes when selling goods both in Europe and internationally, since they will no longer be able to use one process for both metric and non-metric markets," he said in a statement. Should the international trade market boycot Europe? I think so, theEU should be on an international trade ban.
Just to add, the EU has managed to ban smoking in public areas in France, now they wish to pilot a scheme which bans the use of mobile phones in public. So, this really does make it pointless owning a mobile phone. The best laws are to come yet, I'll save that for another post sometime this week once I've gathered confirmation from the rats nest the EU have made of their web sites.
One has to really think, did the Nazis win the war with politics?
