On Fri, 3 Jun 2005 23:18:26 +0100, "Mike" wrote:


"Peter Parry" wrote

Why? They can introduce standards whenever they like if they are
needed. In fact France has many standards, all ignored. You think
they will suddenly take note of a eurostandard and rewire everywhere?

Yes - because there will be EU grants to do so.

If countries are that exercised by it they can use national grants.
However, I am more than slightly unconvinced that the EU will hand
out thousands of pounds per house for rewiring. Even if they were to
do so the enormity of the task and the shortage of people capable of
doing the work would be such that it would take centuries to
complete.

Even CENELEC found this unlikely and required backward compatibility
with Shuko in the initially proposed "standard" (but not for some
reason with UK systems).

No it didn't. Where do you get this from.

A comment on a 1993 draft document.

Oh don't be so silly. Do you think this discussion could even take place if
a whole host of standards weren't in place to allow our comments to get to
each other.

I did not say standards were not necessary, merely that they are more
often related to what is minimally acceptable rather than good
quality. International standards in particular are often simply
those which a group of people with opposing vested interests can
agree will cause least damage to the interests of each. That does
not make them bad or unnecessary but it does mean they rarely have
anything to do with good quality. The snail like pace of the
standards definition process also means it constantly lag years
behind reality.


--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/