Last-ditch fight to save the British barometer in the European Parliament tomorrow
Posted, July 09, 2007 @ 16:00
Strasbourg, July 9th 2007 -- Deserted by the British Government, the UK barometer industry's last-ditch bid to avoid extinction comes to a final vote in the European Parliament tomorrow (Tues).
British Conservatives, refusing to back down after Labour decided to cave into the ban on new mercury barometers, will ask the European Parliament to reconsider and save traditional jobs in a harmless industry.
Back in November 2006, at first reading, the European Parliament voted to support an amendment from Martin Callanan MEP, which excluded barometers from the directive, but Member States refused to accept this. The British Government offered no support to British small businesses and supported the Commission’s ban.
Martin Callanan, the Conservative MEP who has led the fight to defeat the proposed law to outlaw the use of mercury in the ancient weather instrument, said:
"This is the last ditch for the traditional barometer. I am determined to make the point that with 18 million unemployed in Europe this is no time make a law that adds more people to the dole queue. I am extremely annoyed at the lack of support from the British government who yet again are prepared to see hundreds of years of British tradition destroyed and the production of barometers banned.
"I accept that mercury does need to be controlled but this could have been done by appropriate safety warnings and careful controls which would have allowed the continuation of barometer production and safeguarded many jobs and small businesses in the UK and the rest of Europe.
"This ban brings to an end the tradition of barometer making which was begun in the mid 1600s when mercury barometers were first introduced.
"Barometers are produced by a small number of companies in Europe, predominantly located in the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium, who also carry out the repair, maintenance and recycling of historic instruments.
"These businesses will now most probably close down and the repair and maintenance of thousands of existing instruments in circulation will become impossible."