I now have a copy of the eighth summer time directive, as published in the Official Journal. It is titled: Eighth Directive 97/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 July 1997 on summer-time arrangements. It runs for 4 years, 1998--2001, and confirms the current rules of last Sunday in March to last Sunday in October, ie: 1998: 29 March to 25 October 1999: 28 March to 31 October 2000: 26 March to 29 October 2001: 25 March to 28 October (it does give the actual dates). The directive does not apply in overseas territories of the Memmber States. It says the Commision should produce a proposal for 2002 and beyond by 1 Jan 2000 and this should be adopted by 1 Jan 2001. I doubt that this will happen though. This Eighth Directive was supposed to be adopted by 1 Jan 1997 and I doubt that summer-time arrangements will be top of the Commission's priority list as the new millennium dawns. There is no mention of the French desire to abandon the whole idea. France has had a change of government recently so maybe it will be quietly dropped. More and more EU stuff is now on the WWW but I can't find this yet. It may be that Directives won't appear in order to make you buy the Official Journal. It may appear at the European Parliament's site (http://www.europarl.eu.int/, select language, Subject Index, Texts Adopted: Provisional edition, and search) but it only goes up to 18 July at present. Peter Ilieve peter@aldie.co.uk