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European Parliament Set To End EU-Wide Daylight Saving (dw.com)
The European Commission and European Parliament are set to end daylight saving time in 2021, at least in some states. "Now that the lead committee on transport and tourism has given its blessing, by a large majority, EU lawmakers could vote on the change by the end of March," reports Deutsche Welle. "After that, all 28 member states will need to rubberstamp the ruling." From the report: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker's brash statement back in September, asserting that the amendment would go ahead quickly, has proven to be premature. At the time, Juncker was referring to an overwhelming response to an EU online survey, where an unexpected 80 percent of respondents said the practice of changing the clock twice a year was outdated. But the survey was not representative, with 3 million of the 4.6 million votes coming from Germany. This led to diplomats from smaller EU countries complaining behind closed doors that the European Commission wanted to impose German will on the other states through sheer populism.
Juncker was keen to abolish the twice-yearly time shift by spring, probably so he could claim, before European Parliament elections in May, that the will of the people had been reflected. But some member states demanded a transitional period up to 2021. Good things come to those who wait, it seems, especially in the EU. As a compromise for the repeal of the "Directive on summer time," spring or autumn in 2020 has now been suggested. This means that by June EU states will have to draw the lines for each time zone and decide what time those places will set their clocks to, and when. Some EU members -- including the United Kingdom, Greece and Portugal -- want to stick to the old rules and continue to switch between summer and winter time through the year. Cyprus, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Ireland have not decided. The other states want to get rid of the twice-yearly change, but still have to decide which time will apply.
Juncker was keen to abolish the twice-yearly time shift by spring, probably so he could claim, before European Parliament elections in May, that the will of the people had been reflected. But some member states demanded a transitional period up to 2021. Good things come to those who wait, it seems, especially in the EU. As a compromise for the repeal of the "Directive on summer time," spring or autumn in 2020 has now been suggested. This means that by June EU states will have to draw the lines for each time zone and decide what time those places will set their clocks to, and when. Some EU members -- including the United Kingdom, Greece and Portugal -- want to stick to the old rules and continue to switch between summer and winter time through the year. Cyprus, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Ireland have not decided. The other states want to get rid of the twice-yearly change, but still have to decide which time will apply.
I found out about the survey (I am in the UK) and voted to end DST... when the server stayed up long enough to accept my vote. (It was crashing under the weight of people trying to use it, not being DDoSed, it seems.)
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
The EU is under-represented in the UK. In other countries you see it everywhere - anything funded by EU money has an EU flag on it, and institutions are proud to mention that they are doing stuff with or funded by the EU. The media is much more engaged with what the EU is doing and doesn't consider it a separate organization, it's another democratic institution along side the national government.
That's why the UK was so vulnerable to brexit. People really thought it was like some kind of club they could just cancel their membership of and walk away. Someone guy on the TV was talking about how upset he was because he thought that a few days after the vote the UK would be out - he didn't even read the official Leave campaign's leaflet apparently.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Personally I don't care if we abandon DST. I live in the Netherlands, which is quite northerly. We get about 8 hours of sunlight in winter, and 16 hours in summer. But please for the love of god don't establish DST year round. I'd like to have the sun up before 9:30 please.
I'm in Southern Europe. We're not on DST yet, and sunrise this morning was at 6:04 AM. I rarely get up before 7:15-7:30 AM. Sun at 6? I don't care. Neither do most people, standard working hours are from 8:30. In January, sunrise is around 7:15. With permanent DST, it would be 8:15. It gets lighter (morning twilight) about an hour or so before sunrise of course. And January days here are usually grey and gloomy anyways, most days you won't see the sun.
With DST, sunrise in August is around 5:30-45 AM. In June it's 5:00 AM, which means morning twilight is already at 4. Without it, it would 4:30 AM in August, 4 AM in June and twilight an hour earlier. Pretty useless for most people, and also sleep-interrupting.
In conclusion, I want DST year round, i.e. to move permanently to the GMT+2 time zone. The "natural" time zone in most of the country is about GMT+1.5 anyways, so we're off by half an hour either way.
It has occurred to me through these discussions about DST that time zones should not only be made east to west, but also north to south. What makes in Scandinavia might not make sense in Central Europe and neither of that might make sense in the Mediterranean.
The whole point of being on DST permanently is to not get up any earlier and shift that hour of daylight to the evening. People don't care so much if they go to work in the dark, they want their own personal time to be in daylight.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Nonsense, the EU has absolutely nothing to do with these wars. Those were carried out by NATO and more precisely, by member states themselves. The EU isn't supposed to interfere in member states' defense policies, as it was not designed as a military union. There are no treaties that legislate on these matters and the EU is simply not allowed to interfere, even if they wanted.
Besides, the EU did a pretty good job at preventing conflicts inside its borders. Nobody claimed that the EU would prevent wars globally. But preventing wars inside the EU's border is one of the objectives - and it's been pretty successful. Without the EU wars in Europe are just a matter of time.
If you are looking for responsibility about the state of the Middle East - look at the US and NATO.
I don't like the sky still being bright at night when I need to get to sleep for work in the morning.
I like the sky being light at night when I'm awake. I don't like it being light at 5am when I'm trying to sleep to a reasonable time before getting up for work.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You must be a morning person then. Good on you.
Lot's of people need sunlight for their natural sleep/wake cycles. Shifting the time an hour away from the natural time zone makes it harder for most people.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
I can't talk about others, but I wouldn't want to send my kids to school in darkness.
Your local school board could decide on times that make sense for your local conditions.
Yes, I realize that this also involves tradeoffs between parental working hours.