Amendment to the Metrology Act

The title of this Act is the Metrology Act of 2010.  This Legal Notice transposes the European Directive 2009/3/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to units of measurement.  This Directive changes the First Schedule of the Metrology Act.

Directive 80/181/EEC supports the smooth functioning of the internal market through the level of harmonisation of units of measurement it prescribes. In this context, it is appropriate that the Commission monitors market developments relating to that Directive and its implementation, notably as concerns possible obstacles to the functioning of the internal market and any further harmonisation required to overcome those obstacles.

It is appropriate that the Commission continue to strongly pursue, in the context of its third country trade relations, including the Transatlantic Economic Council, the acceptance in third country markets of products labelled only in the units of the International System of Units (SI).

Supplementary indications could also allow the gradual and smooth introduction of new metric units which may be developed at the international level. In 1995, the General Conference on Weights and Measures decided to eliminate the class of SI supplementary units as a separate class in the SI and to interpret the units ‘radian' and ‘steradian' as dimensionless SI derived units, the names and symbols of which may, but need not, be used in expressions for other SI derived units, as is convenient.

In 1999, the General Conference on Weights and Measures adopted, within the framework of the SI, the ‘katal', the symbol of which is ‘kat', as the SI unit for catalytic activity. This new harmonised SI unit was intended to ensure a coherent and uniform indication of units of measurement in the fields of medicine and biochemistry and, as a consequence, to eliminate any risk of misunderstanding arising from the use of non-harmonised units.

In 2007, in order to eliminate one of the major sources of the observed variability between different realisations of the water triple point, the General Conference on Weights and Measures adopted a note on the definition of the ‘kelvin'. The ‘kelvin' is defined as a fraction of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water. The note refers to water of a specific isotopic composition.

Since the acre is no longer in use for land registration purposes in the United Kingdom and Ireland, there is no longer any need to provide for an exemption in that respect. In accordance with point 34 of the Interinstitutional Agreement on better law-making, Member States are encouraged to draw up, for themselves and in the interests of the Community, their own tables illustrating, as far as possible, the correlation between this Directive and the transposition measures, and to make them public. (12) Directive 80/181/EEC should therefore be amended accordingly,