EU Backs Ending Daylight Saving Time (theguardian.com)

New submitter Zarhan writes: Earlier this summer, European Commission conducted a poll on whether EU citizens would like to abolish adjusting their clocks twice a year. The results are now in: 80% of the respondents want to get rid of the changes every spring and autumn. EU Commission is planning to follow through and abolish the practice. In EU, individual countries decide what timezone they belong in, but the clock adjustment is an EU-level decision. The recommendation for now is to stick to summer time year-round, although individual countries will make those decisions. More from DW. The changes are known to affect sleep patterns and causes loss in productivity and even heart attacks, especially when you lose one hour of sleep during the spring change. "I will recommend to the commission that, if you ask the citizens, then you have to do what the citizens say," said Jean-Claude Juncker, the commission's president. "We will decide on this today, and then it will be the turn of the member states and the European parliament."

Comments

Ditch DST, no "permanent" DST

[Anonymous Coward]

As an EU citizen I commented on this and argued for abolishing the DST and keep standard time.

Staying in permanent "summer time" just means you are in another timezone than you claim. So that is plain stupid. Now you don't only have to know which time zone a country is in, you also have to know if they decided to be in permanent summer time or use the normal time associated with the time zone.

So, ditch the DST and let the countries decide what time zone they want to be in. NO SUMMER TIME ALLOWED! The effect is the same but it will be a heck lot easier for travelers or people communicating across time zones.

Re:Ditch DST, no "permanent" DST

[Athanasius]

I used to be stridently against any form of DST. Then I realised that one thing that being +1 achieves is to move the middle of business hours closer to local solar noon. 09h->17h is offset exactly one hour, add in DST and local 09h is now solar 08h, likewise 17h -> 16h, and you have properly distributed the available daylight either side of the middle of the business hours. Obviously business hours aren't as fixed as this, in the UK often being 09:00->17:30 or even until 18:00, so it's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

And doing this with permanent DST is easier than trying to get all schools and businesses to actually shift their hours around.

And that's why, when I filled in the EU questionnaire, I expressed a preference for what has turned out to be the majority opinion.

For those parts (latitude bands) of the world where DST can possibly make a difference to the amount of daylight at either end of the day there's too little of it in the depths of Winter anyway! Further north than that has too little and this is a change for no good reason, and further south there's no need as they maintain enough daylight hours even in Winter.

Re:well now ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No worries. The poll they use as argument was an online poll buried in some EU website. Not like it was a legitimate referendum. Just one of those "how can we legitimize what we're going to do anyway" things.

Basically the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in real life.

Re:Democracy?

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Rest assured. These polls are not known to the average European citizen. Only lobby groups check them, or mobilize others to check them. At no point was there a referendum or something like that.

80% of the votes where from Germany, probably because the main German public news website actually bothered to publish a story on this poll and provided links to the EU website. This is how I learned of it and why I participated.

If I hadn't read the article in the news, I would have had no idea.