Council Directive of 20 December 1979 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to units of measurement and on the repeal of Directive 71/354/EEC (80/181/EEC)

• Celex Number: 01980L0181-20200613
• Coming into Force: 13 June 2020
• ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/1980/181/2020-06-13
• Published date: 13 June 2020
• Date: 13 June 2020
• Court: Données provisoires,Datos provisionales,Dati provvisori,Vorläufige Daten,Provisional data

01980L0181 — EN — 13.06.2020 — 005.001

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►B COUNCIL DIRECTIVE of 20 December 1979 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to units of measurement and on the repeal of Directive 71/354/EEC (80/181/EEC) (OJ L 039 15.2.1980, p. 40)

Amended by:

		Official Journal
		No	page	date
►M1	COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 85/1/EEC of 18 December 1984	L 2	11	3.1.1985
►M2	COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 89/617/EEC of 27 November 1989	L 357	28	7.12.1989
►M3	DIRECTIVE 1999/103/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 24 January 2000	L 34	17	9.2.2000
►M4	DIRECTIVE 2009/3/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL Text with EEA relevance of 11 March 2009	L 114	10	7.5.2009
►M5	COMMISSION DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/1258 Text with EEA relevance of 23 July 2019	L 196	6	24.7.2019

Corrected by:

►C1	Corrigendum, OJ L 296, 15.10.1981, p. 52 (1980/181)
►C2	Corrigendum, OJ L 104, 29.4.2000, p. 89 (1999/103/EC)
C3	Corrigendum, OJ L 311, 12.12.2000, p. 50 (1999/103/EC)

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▼B

COUNCIL DIRECTIVE

of 20 December 1979

on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to units of measurement and on the repeal of Directive 71/354/EEC

(80/181/EEC)

Article 1

The legal units of measurement within the meaning of this Directive which must be used for expressing quantities shall be:

(a)

those listed in Chapter I of the Annex;

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(b)

those listed in Chapter II of the Annex only in those Member States where they were authorised on 21 April 1973;

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(c)

those listed in Chapter III of the Annex only in those Member States where they were authorized on 21 April 1973 and until a date to be fixed by those States. This date may not be later than 31 December 1994;

(d)

those listed in Chapter IV of the Annex only in those Member States where they were authorized on 21 April 1973 and until a date to be fixed by those States. This date may not be later than 31 December 1999.

▼B

Article 2

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(a)

The obligations arising under Article 1 relate to measuring instruments used, measurements made and indications of quantity expressed in units of measurement.

▼B

(b)

This Directive shall not affect the use in the field of air and sea transport and rail traffic of units, other than those made compulsory by the Directive, which have been laid down in international conventions or agreements binding the Community or the Member States.

Article 3

1. For the purposes of this Directive ‘supplementary indication’means one or more indications of quantity expressed in units of measurement not contained in Chapter I of the Annex accompanying an indication of quantity expressed in a unit contained in that Chapter.

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2. The use of supplementary indications shall be authorised.

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3. However, Member States may require that measuring instruments bear indications of quantity in a single legal unit of measurement.

4. The indication expressed in a unit of measurement listed in Chapter I shall predominate. In particular, the indications expressed in units of measurement not listed in Chapter I shall be expressed in characters no larger than those of the corresponding indication in units listed in Chapter I.

▼M2 —————

▼B

Article 4

The use of units of measurement which are not or are no longer legal shall be authorized for:

—

products and equipment already on the market and/or in service on the date on which this Directive is adopted,

—

components and parts of products and of equipment necessary to supplement or replace components or parts of the above products and equipment.

However, the use of legal units of measurement may be required for the indicators of measuring instruments.

Article 5

International standard ISO 2955 of ►M2 15 May 1983 ◄ , ‘Information processing — Representations of SI and other units for use in systems with limited character sets’ shall apply in the field covered by paragraph 1 thereof.

Article 6

Directive 71/354/EEC shall be repealed on 1 October 1981.

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Article 6a

Issues concerning the implementation of this Directive and, in particular, the matter of supplementary indications shall be further examined, and if necessary the appropriate measures adopted in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 18 of Council Directive 71/316/EEC ( 1 ).

▼M4

Article 6b

The Commission shall monitor market developments relating to this Directive and its implementation with regard to the smooth functioning of the internal market and international trade and shall submit a report on those developments, accompanied by proposals where appropriate, to the European Parliament and to the Council by 31 December 2019.

▼B

Article 7

(a)

Member States shall adopt and publish before 1 July 1981 the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive and shall inform the Commission thereof.

They shall apply these provisions from 1 October 1981.

(b)

As from the date of notification of this Directive, Member States shall also ensure that the Commission is informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any draft laws, regulations or administrative provisions which they intend to adopt in the field covered by this Directive.

Article 8

This Directive is addressed to the Member States.

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▼C1

ANNEX

CHAPTER I

LEGAL UNITS OF MEASUREMENT REFERRED TO IN ARTICLE 1 (a)

1. SI UNITS AND THEIR DECIMAL MULTIPLES AND SUBMULTIPLES

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1.1. SI base units

Quantity	Unit
	Name	Symbol
Time	second	s
Length	metre	m
Mass	kilogram	kg
Electric current	ampere	A
Thermodynamic temperature	kelvin	K
Amount of substance	mole	mol
Luminous intensity	candela	cd

Definitions of SI base units:

Unit of time

The second, symbol s, is the SI unit of time. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the caesium frequency Δν Cs, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium 133 atom, to be 9 192 631 770 when expressed in the unit Hz, which is equal to s–1.

Unit of length

The metre, symbol m, is the SI unit of length. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the speed of light in vacuum c to be 299 792 458 when expressed in the unit m/s, where the second is defined in terms of Δν Cs.

Unit of mass

The kilogram, symbol kg, is the SI unit of mass. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the Planck constant h to be 6,626 070 15 × 10–34 when expressed in the unit J s, which is equal to kg m2 s–1, where the metre and the second are defined in terms of c and Δν Cs.

Unit of electric current

The ampere, symbol A, is the SI unit of electric current. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the elementary charge e to be 1,602 176 634 × 10–19 when expressed in the unit C, which is equal to A s, where the second is defined in terms of Δν Cs.

Unit of thermodynamic temperature

The kelvin, symbol K, is the SI unit of thermodynamic temperature. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the Boltzmann constant k to be 1,380 649 × 10–23 when expressed in the unit J K–1, which is equal to kg m2 s–2 K–1, where the kilogram, metre and second are defined in terms of h, c and Δν Cs.

Unit of amount of substance

The mole, symbol mol, is the SI unit of amount of substance. One mole contains exactly 6,022 140 76 × 1023 elementary entities. This number is the fixed numerical value of the Avogadro constant, N A, when expressed in the unit mol–1 and is called the Avogadro number.

The amount of substance, symbol n, of a system is a measure of the number of specified elementary entities. An elementary entity may be an atom, a molecule, an ion, an electron, any other particle or specified group of particles.

Unit of luminous intensity

The candela, symbol cd, is the SI unit of luminous intensity in a given direction. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the luminous efficacy of monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 × 1012 Hz, K cd, to be 683 when expressed in the unit lm W–1, which is equal to cd sr W–1, or cd sr kg–1 m–2 s3, where the kilogram, metre and second are defined in terms of h, c and Δν Cs.

1.1.1. Special name and symbol of the SI derived unit of temperature for expressing Celsius temperature

Quantity	Unit
	Name	Symbol
Celsius temperature	degree Celsius	°C

Celsius temperature t is defined as the difference t = T – T0 between the two thermodynamic temperatures T and T 0 where T 0 = 273,15 K. An interval or difference of temperature may be expressed either in kelvins or in degrees Celsius. The unit ‘degree Celsius’ is equal to the unit ‘kelvin’.

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1.2. SI derived units

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1.2.2. General rule for SI derived units

Units derived coherently from SI base units are given as algebraic expressions in the form of products of powers of the SI base units with a numerical factor equal to 1.

1.2.3. SI derived units with special names and symbols

Quantity	Unit		Expression
	Name	Symbol	In terms of other SI units	In terms of SI base units
Plane angle	radian	rad		m · m–1
Solid angle	steradian

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