Brussels, 11/09/2007 (Agence Europe) - After wide consultation of stakeholders and an impact study, the European Commission has proposed updating directive 80/181/EC on harmonising member states' legislation on units of measurement. In this update, the Commission intends to: - bring consumer and environmental protection within the scope of directive 80/181/EC; - include the “katal”, a new unit adopted in 1999 by the General Conference on Weights and Measures for catalytic activity, as a legal unit within the International System of Units (SI) - this new SI harmonised unit guarantees consistent and uniform labelling of units of measure in the areas of medicine and biochemistry, and thus eliminates any possibility of misunderstanding caused by the use of non-harmonised units; - authorises the use of additional measures alongside metric units for an unlimited period of time and no longer requires the United Kingdom and Ireland to phase out limited local exceptions like the pint (for beer, cider and milk), the mile (and also yards, feet and inches for indicating distances and speed) and the troy ounce (for precious metal transactions) where these are still used. However, the exception concerning the use of the acre for the land register, permitted under the terms of Article 1 of directive 80/181/EC, will no longer be applied because of a change in the administrative procedures of these two member states. “Experience showed that these usages are local and not any impediment to cross-border trade,” said the Commission, setting out the reasons for its proposal. “Our proposal will stabilise the current application of EU law, which has worked well over 27 years. Extending supplementary indications indefinitely is supported by EU industry and sends a clear signal to our US counterparts that the EU favours a trading environment free of barriers,” said Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen in a press release. He went on: “In return, I hope that the USA will also accept metric-only labelled goods on its territory”. (eh)