Would a EU-US Free Trade Agreement *allow* EU Customs Officials, at point of entry, to reject products that are not labeled and described (in user's instructions) in SI units, placed in the most prominent (first) position?
That is a question subject to negotiation. My recollection is that Most Prominent Position for SI units is already a requirement of EU Directives, and that supplementary units are relegated to second position, and are permitted only for a limited time (cut-off presently postponed until 2020?). From: Kilopascal [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2013 8:07 AM To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:52968] July 8th Talks When news first broke concerning the EU-US free trade talks, it was pointed out that free trade was designed to benefit the EU over the US. For some unknown reason the present laws do not prevent the EU from flooding the US with metric goods and has been very helpful in limiting American industrial exports to the EU and the world. It isn't the use of the metric system, but more inline with national standards. Much of the world, including the EU follows ISO and IEC (which are very metric based) standards. The US on the other hand follow ANSI and other US based standards. ANSI does incorporate a lot of metric, but ISO and IEC are pretty much metric only standards. US negotiators are not going to upset this balance even though the end result is still a benefit for the EU. They will not want to emphasize or force metric international standards on businesses in the US, especially if those businesses argue that their primary customer base are Americans. Most of the products the EU sells in the US are industrial based and the FPLA and other consumer requirements for dual or USC only don't apply. EU companies have no problem providing USC based literature for their metric products for the US and the same literature in metric for the rest of the world. So, I don't see how the issue would be a negotiable point in the discussions. I believe though that SI is already the standard system for trade and settling of accounts for the world and the US does comply. [USMA:52968] July 8th Talks<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]&q=subject:%22%5BUSMA%3A52968%5D+July+8th+Talks%22> mechtly, eugene a<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]&q=from:%22mechtly%2C+eugene+a%22> Fri, 21 Jun 2013 08:29:53 -0700<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]&q=date:20130621> The next round of Talks leading to a Free Trade Agreement between the EU and US is scheduled for July 8th in Washington, D.C. What are the names of the US negotiators? What are their Talking Points? Will SI be adopted as the *Bilateral Standard* for Units of Measurement? The rejection of exports of Genetically Modified Foods from the US to the EU is certain to be discussed eventually. Eugene Mechtly
