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The European Commission propose to abandon daylight saving time

Credits : Foto-Rabe / Pixabay

Following a public consultation during the summer involving the European Union member states,  The European Commission are prepared to abandon daylight saving hours.

Millions of European citizens have had the chance to express their views on daylight saving hours.  According to the German media ZDF, no less than 80% of European citizens who took part in the survey said they wanted to end changing to daylight saving time. However, it should be noted that almost 3 million of  the 4.6 million responses taken from throughout the Union, were from Germany.

The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Junker said he wanted to propose abandoning the change in summer and winter time throughout the European Union soon. Mr Junker noted that “millions of people have responded and they believe that in the future summer time should continue all year round, and we are going make that happen“. However nothing can happen until the Member States Council have agreed on this decision.  The European Parliament which has previously indicated that it was favorable to this kind of measure must also take the final decision. Although this issue is being discussed, the process of abandoning daylight saving hours could take a long time before being applied.

The transition from winter time to daylight saving time is currently governed by a 2001 European directive, which means that EU states change their time on the last weekend of March and the last weekend of October.  This system dates back to 1916, before being abandonment after the end of the Second World War in 1945. This system was reintroduced in 1976, however it has been widely disputed throughout Europe.

Daylight saving time was reintroduced in 1976 to save energy, however studies have shown that the effects on energy saving have been marginal. Other studies have pointed to an increase in road accidents involving sleep-deprived motorists when the clocks change.  However this research has also been disputed.

As a reminder, the next time the hour is due to change is between the night of Saturday 27th October and the morning of Sunday 28th of October.

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