Plan to allow extra decade for metric change-over

Date: 12/02/1998

By Peter Chapman

THE European Commission is set to unveil plans to give industry an extra ten years to face up to the massive cost of switching all measurements on their products sold in the EU to the metric system.

The move follows concerns that industry was not ready to meet the 31 December 1999 deadline for erasing any trace of other measurements, such as the US imperial system, from products on sale in the Union.

This would have outlawed the current practice of putting two or more sets of measurements on products to cater for the different systems used in the markets where they are sold.

The existing rules mean that European manufacturers do not have to relabel goods intended for export to countries, such as the US, where the imperial system is still used. This method of dual labelling also benefits exporters selling their products on EU markets.

Washington has pledged to change to the metric system, but is nowhere near completing its plans for doing so - prompting calls from manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic for agreement now on a ten-year delay to the change in EU rules.

Member states and industry representatives agreed at a special meeting this week that the European Commission should begin drawing up proposals which could save firms world-wide millions of ecu.

The Commission, which supports the call to update a 1979 directive on metric labelling, will now begin work on proposals to extend the deadline.

"We had a discussion with member states and no major problem arose. That means we will go away and make a proposal that will probably be in the magnitude of a ten-year delay," said one senior official.

He said that the UK has promised to give the issue top priority during its six-month EU presidency in a bid to get formal approval of the plan as quickly as possible.

But he insisted that the delay would not be a carte blanche for industry to forget about going fully metric for another ten years.

"We must insist that the new deadline is met this time around," he said, adding that the fresh proposals would also include demands that industry and governments meet on a regular basis to discuss their plans for changing their systems in time for the revised deadline.

The likely delay comes as a relief to companies concerned about the costs of a move which would have seen imperial measures disappear on everything from paint pots to television sets.

A spokeswoman for the American Electronics Association, whose members produce goods such as microchips, disc drives and computer monitors - usually measured in inches - said the cost of the change-over was difficult to calculate precisely but would run into millions of ecu.

"The problem is that the metric issue filters down to every level of a company. It goes from manufacturing to packaging to organising the lay-out of distribution centres," she said.

The new deadline was also welcomed by some European manufacturers.

"We think this move is very encouraging news," said Rory Macmillan of European cosmetics lobby COLIPA. "We supported the spirit of the directive, but we have to live with reality and we recognised the impact on our business which changing next year would have had."

But other industry sources question whether a ten-year delay will give the US enough time to change its system to metric, eliminating the need for relabelling.

Kathleen Laya, of lobby group International Trade Advisors, said: "We think that 20 years could be more realistic and we hope that the idea of ten years is not already written in stone."