A chain of shops in East Yorkshire, England has been told that it would be a criminal offence to sell thousands of tubes of toot

admin2012-02-27  46

问题     A chain of shops in East Yorkshire, England has been told that it would be a criminal offence to sell thousands of tubes of toothpaste made by a leading French manufacturer simply because the small print giving the firm importing it does not include the letters "UK". Under cosmetics regulations implementing 25 separate European Union instructions, unless the address is London, which is "a major city", the letters UK must be added. The suppliers response, when Gordon Rodgers’s A2Z chain asked them to take back the toothpaste, was that this would pose no problem, because trading standards officials elsewhere in Britain do not bother about such fault-finding to a very minute detail.
    A2Z, which sells a range of more than 10 000 household items from its 14 discount stores in Hull and East Yorkshire, first stumbled into these mysterious requirements of cosmetic labelling when summoned by East Yorkshire trading standards officials on a criminal charge of selling tubes of the same brand of toothpaste, Mentadent, designed for the South African market. These carried the name of a German distributor but no UK supplier. The council had no complaint about the toothpaste itself.
    It is common and legal practice for supermarkets and discount stores to buy up a wide range of branded products packaged by leading European and American manufacturers for non-EU markets. These can then be sold at prices lower than those recommended for identical products in Europe, which are only more expensive because EU consumers can supposedly afford to pay more.
    Council officials were quick to point out that they support the contribution this gray economy makes to "healthy competition". The only problem was that importers’ details must be given by the regulation formula. For a major city such as London only a postcode is necessary, but for other cities and towns the letters UK must be added.
    When A2Z asked how it was expected to examine the small print on the labelling of each of 10 000 products it carries, East Yorkshire replied that it was up to the firm to improve the quality of their inspection procedures. A2Z then supplied the council three weeks running with examples of similar products carrying "illegal labelling", bought from major supermarkets in the same area, asking why these large firms were not also prosecuted. The council said it "did not have the resources" to chase up every case of illegality, to which Mr. Rodgers responded that he "did not have the resources" to improve the quality of their inspection procedures, which the council was asking of him. Last week his firm’s case was adjourned.
What does the article tell us about the EU?

选项 A、They look after customers’ interests.
B、They are very strict with the labelling of cosmetics.
C、They just make work to give themselves a job.
D、They protect EU suppliers.

答案B

解析 细节题。根据文中所述,A2Z因为所售商品的标签上少了UK的字样或进口商的名称而违反了欧盟关于化妆品的规定。由此可见,欧盟对化妆品标签的标注是很严格的,所以B为正确选项。根据文章内容,我们得不出“欧盟在保护消费者的利益”这一推论。对消费者来说,进口商是谁并不重要,所以A不对。C说“他们只是在自己给自己找事做”,显然这已经融进了对欧盟细致的规定的极端的个人看法。根据常识,任何政府的规定都是有其一定的客观必要性的。所以我们不能选C。D说“他们在保护欧盟的供货商”,但这和产品标签必须标明供货商详细名称并无实际上的关系,所以D不对。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/j4HO777K
0

最新回复(0)