Tories and Labour create 'pint and loaf' confusion

4.08.51pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 1st Feb 2006

Sarah and her 'pinta' milk.

European Liberal Democrats are calling on the European Parliament's conservative and socialist groups, to which Tories and Labour belong, to join them in voting down the report which has caused such confusion about the future of the British pinta and loaf of bread.

Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford says:

'The European Commission - the 'Brussels bureaucrats' - are the good guys in this saga of woe. They proposed to slash red tape for most products so as to allow whatever sizes of bottles and cartons shops and customers wanted."

"But conservative and socialist Euro-MPs insisted on maintaining EU harmonisation rules for an additional list of products including milk. So now there has to be an exception to try to save the pinta. What a dog's dinner!"

"Despite all the rhetoric we hear from others, only the Liberal Democrats can be relied on to consistently oppose unnecessary Euro-harmonisation."

"This ridiculous report by some misguided MEPs should be thrown out in favour of the Commission's original deregulation plan. That's what Liberal Democrats will do."

Note:

In the Commission's proposal only a tiny number of products would keep specified bottle or package sizes (wine, spirits, instant coffee and white sugar). Conservative and Socialist group MEPs voted to add butter, brown sugar, rice, pasta and milk to that list, which Liberal Democrats opposed.