According to today's Daily Express, the Greenwich Mean Time system is on borrowed time.

The paper reports that “meddling Eurocrats” are pressing for GMT to be replaced with the UTC system, based on the atomic clock.

So just who are these “meddling Eurocrats”?

Rather than coming from the European Union, the European Commission or the European Court of Human Rights, those backing the calls are “a group of scientists from the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), based near Paris.”

So what is BIPM and what does it have to do with any of the European Institutions above – the widely accepted places of work for your average Eurocrat?

Not a lot, it seems.

According to the BIPM website, it was founded in 1875 by 17 signatories to the Convention of the Metre, some 82 years before the Treaty of Rome.

Likewise, their membership includes countries such as the United States, Iran and even North Korea.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a Eurocrat as: “A member of the administrative staff of any of various European organizations, esp. the European Union or its predecessors.”

The Express' definition is a much broader one seemingly encompassing anyone who works for an international organisation that has its headquarters on the continent.