Christopher Booker's
notebook
(Filed: 26/03/2006)
Organs will still sound despite the law's confusion
Few EU directives have caused more upset in recent times than the one aid to
threaten the survival of tens of thousands of organs, in cathedrals, churches
and concert halls throughout Europe. The suggestion that this aw > might, in a
way it was never intended to, do away with these magnificent musical
instruments, which have been at the heart of European culture or centuries, has
understandably sent a shock wave across the world.
Yet, astonishingly, it emerges that this furore arises from a basic
misunderstanding of the nature of organs, leaving officials and politicians
hopelessly at sea in their interpretation of a law that they themselves have
framed. The problem began with a Brussels directive, 2002/95 on the Restriction
of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic
Equipment (RoHS). Among the substances which this bans from use in electrical
equipment is lead.
The metal pipes which produce sound in an organ can only be made from a >
lead-tin alloy. Nothing else will do, to create their incredible range of
tones. The air that passes through these pipes (of which there may be
any thousands - the Royal Albert Hall's organ, for example, has 9,999) is
usually driven by an electrically-powered blower.
As long ago as January 2001, when RoHS, and a companion directive on the
disposal of electrical waste, were first under discussion, Douglas Levey of the
Institute of British Organ Building (IBO) wrote to the department of Trade and
Industry to make sure that any ban on lead would not apply to the organ pipes
themselves, since these are wholly separate from any parts worked by
electricity, such as a blower or electronic controls.
He had no answer to his point, and the directive was issued in 2003, followed
last autumn by regulations passing it into UK law. It was now vital to everyone
in the organ world that the issue should be clarified before the regulations
came into force, on July 1 this year; so last month Mr. Levey wrote to the
European Commission.
But it became obvious that, since none of the officials involved had properly
focused on how organs might be affected by the directive, they were unable to
give a clear response. The Commission merely advised that the onus for
determining whether any "product" is covered by the directive lies with its
"producer", as the "person best placed to assess the characteristics of his
product".
On this basis the IBO was confident that, though the directive applied to the
electrical installations in an organ, it did not apply to the pipes. To
identify them as "electrical equipment" would be as absurd as to claim that, if
a building is fitted with air conditioning, then the whole structure should be
considered as an electric device. But however clear this has seemed to legal and
other experts, it has so far been too much for politicians or officials to
grasp. When a DTI minister, Alun Michael, was challenged in the Commons last
week, he could only suggest that the organ builders should apply for an
"exemption" from the law.
As the IBO explains on its website (www.pipes4organs.org), this wholly misses the point. First, it implies that organ pipes are covered by the directive (otherwise there would be no need for an exemption). Second, such exemptions are only temporary, so that, in a few years' time, the whole case would have to be argued again.
That is why on Tuesday,
following the Commission's advice and with growing support from across the
musical world, the IBO will visit the DTI to insist that there must no longer be
any confusion about this matter: the directive is irrelevant to organ pipes.
Ultimately the only authority that could gainsay this is the European Court of
Justice, the final arbiter on the meaning of EU law. And the possibility that
the ECJ might interpret the directive in a way that would force the eventual
removal of the organs from the cathedrals, churches and concert halls of Europe,
and expose the EU to the ridicule of the entire civilised world, must be
unthinkable.