An extraordinary row, involving major European and US industries, is blowing up over the European Commission's determination to make it illegal, in three years' time, for any products made in or imported into the EU to carry any reference to non-metric measures. Not only will this cost industries on both sides of the Atlantic billions of dollars and euros, but it is in direct breach of US federal law.The Commission is so set on stamping out the hated non-metric system that, as of January 1, 2010, it is imposing a total ban on what it calls "supplementary indications" – ie any mention of inches, pounds or other non-metric units in advertising, labelling, catalogues, manuals and the like.
What will become illegal, under directive 80/181, is the current freedom of choice whereby both systems can be used to assist understanding; as, for instance, where a supermarket or market stall puts "lbs" as well as kilograms; or where car tyres are identified in a mix of inches and millimetres and their pressures can still be legally measured either in bars or in pounds per square inch. (It will hardly promote safety when most British drivers haven't a clue how much air to put in their tyres and it becomes illegal for the pump to indicate the "psi" equivalent.)