Winter time, summer time: the European Commission proposes to end it

MIL OSI Translation. Region: France and French Territories –

Source: Republic of France in French

Credits: © Schneider Foto – Fotolia.com

The President of the European Commission has presented to MEPs a proposal to end in 2019 the obligation for Member States to advance clocks by one hour in March and to reduce them by the same amount in October.

What is the project?

At the request of the European Parliament, the Commission conducted a public consultation on seasonal time changes during the summer of 2018 which collected 4.6 million responses (the highest participation rate ever recorded for a consultation). organized by the Commission). 84% of those who responded said they favored their removal.

The Commission therefore proposes to end these changes from 2019, leaving the 28 Member States free to decide whether they want to permanently apply summer time or winter time. In accordance with the legislative proposal, Member States should coordinate their choices in order to safeguard the proper functioning of the internal market and to avoid the fragmentation that may occur in a situation where some decide to continue to apply the time-related rules. while others would delete them.

To ensure a smooth transition, the proposed Directive requires each Member State to notify the Commission by April 2019 of its intention to permanently apply summer time or winter time. The last compulsory daylight saving time will be on Sunday 31 March 2019. Member States wishing to return permanently to winter time will have the possibility of making a final change on Sunday 27 October 2019. After this date, seasonal time changes will no longer be possible.

This proposal will now be submitted to the european Parliament and the Council, which will decide all the response.

To note :

The next time change will take place in the night of Saturday 27 to Sunday 28 October 2018 : at 3 o’clock in the morning, we pushed back the hands of time and it will be 2 hours. This will help to gain an hour of sleep but will be losing one hour of brightness in the end of the day.

Why give up the time change ?

Introduced for economic reasons during the oil crisis of the 1970s, the time change has lost much of its relevance because expert studies have shown that energy savings become marginal. In addition, countries such as Sweden, Lithuania, Finland or Poland, called for the abandonment of this system for several years, and the european citizens were more likely to complain of adverse impacts on health and on the number of road accidents.

Namely :

What is the situation elsewhere in the world?

About 60 countries, mainly located in North America and Oceania, apply seasonal time changes.

An increasing number of neighbouring countries or trading partners of the european Union have chosen not to apply or delete the terms and conditions pertaining to the summer time, such as Iceland, China, Russia, Belarus, and most recently Turkey.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure is not be perfect.