THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular Article 100 thereof;

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission;

Whereas the methods used for official tests in the Member States to determine the fibre composition of textile products should be uniform, as regards both the pre-treatment of the sample and the quantitative analysis of the product;

Whereas the object of this Directive is to lay down provisions governing the quantitative analysis of ternary fibre mixtures;

Whereas the particular methods relating to the analysis of certain binary mixtures are described in detail in the Directive of 17 July 1972; whereas present experience does not permit the specification of a single standard procedure as yet; whereas several variants must be proposed for the selective dissolution of the components;

Whereas general rules valid for the analysis of all ternary mixtures must however be worked out; whereas the object of these rules is to specify the various methods which could suitably be applied and the method of calculating the percentage composition for each variant;

Whereas technical specifications must be adapted rapidly to keep pace with technical progress; whereas to this end the procedure laid down in Article 6 of the Directive of 17 July 1972 should be applied;

HAS ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE: