BBC: Clock changes: EU backs ending daylight saving
Clearly, not going to happen that soon. Regards https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45366390 The EU Commission is proposing to end the practice of adjusting clocks by an hour in spring and autumn after a survey found most Europeans opposed it. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said millions "believe that in future, summer time should be year-round, and that's what will happen". The Commission's proposal requires support from the 28 national governments and MEPs to become law. In the EU clocks switch between winter and summer under daylight saving time. A European Parliament resolution says it is "crucial to maintain a unified EU time regime". However, the Commission has not yet drafted details of the proposed change. In a consultation paper it said one option would be to let each member state decide whether to go for permanent summer or winter time. That would be "a sovereign decision of each member state", Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein explained on Friday.
On 2018-08-31 06:33, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
Clearly, not going to happen that soon.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45366390
The EU Commission is proposing to end the practice of adjusting clocks by an hour in spring and autumn after a survey found most Europeans opposed it.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said millions "believe that in future, summer time should be year-round, and that's what will happen".
Despite one reason for the consultation being recent research results showing possibly adverse health effects from summer time observance: perhaps they just can't understand that they will keep "summer time" throughout winter and the impact on daylight hours, or that is a desire mainly in southern mediterranean countries, while the northern countries will prefer to stay on "winter time". -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.
On 2018-08-31 13:33:42 (+0100), Marshall Eubanks wrote:
In a consultation paper it said one option would be to let each member state decide whether to go for permanent summer or winter time. That would be "a sovereign decision of each member state", Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein explained on Friday.
That'll go well ... Philip -- Philip Paeps Senior Reality Engineer Ministry of Information
Le 31/08/2018 à 16:05, Philip Paeps a écrit :
On 2018-08-31 13:33:42 (+0100), Marshall Eubanks wrote:
In a consultation paper it said one option would be to let each member state decide whether to go for permanent summer or winter time. That would be "a sovereign decision of each member state", Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein explained on Friday. That'll go well ...
Assuming that was intended ironically, why? Countries realise that they need to balance convenience for their citizens against the importance of coordinating time with their trading partners. I can't see France or any of the Benelux countries agreeing to permanent UTC+2 (which would be around two hours ahead of local solar time), nor can I see Germany or Italy deciding to be on a different time zone to France and Benelux. So the heart of Europe will IMO stay on UTC+1. Spain might decide to do the geographically logical thing and join Portugal on UTC+0, but I think it is more likely to stay on UTC+1 too. Likewise, various eastern European countries "ought" to change to UTC+2, but would almost certainly make the decision as a bloc rather than piecemeal. And the Nordic countries, which share latitude-related issues, would be highly likely to make a joint decision too. FWIW, John
If Europe descends into time zone chaos (let's hope not), likely victims will include time zone names and abbreviations, since the meaning of "Central European Time" might be +01 or +02 or even +03 depending on one's nationality or politics. If there are signs of anything like this happening, tzdb can and probably should switch to numeric offsets in Europe, to help lessen confusion. (We can keep "GMT", though, as it's not confusing.)
On 2018-08-31 16:19:32 (+0100), John Wilcock wrote:
Le 31/08/2018 à 16:05, Philip Paeps a écrit :
On 2018-08-31 13:33:42 (+0100), Marshall Eubanks wrote:
In a consultation paper it said one option would be to let each member state decide whether to go for permanent summer or winter time. That would be "a sovereign decision of each member state", Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein explained on Friday.
That'll go well ...
Assuming that was intended ironically, why? Countries realise that they need to balance convenience for their citizens against the importance of coordinating time with their trading partners.
Making it a purely domestic matter could open the door to countries potentially "experimenting" with time zones over a period of years. While they would presumably coordinate with their trading partners, they have less of an incentive to announce any changes to the wider world in sufficient time for software to catch up.
I can't see France or any of the Benelux countries agreeing to permanent UTC+2 (which would be around two hours ahead of local solar time), nor can I see Germany or Italy deciding to be on a different time zone to France and Benelux. So the heart of Europe will IMO stay on UTC+1. Spain might decide to do the geographically logical thing and join Portugal on UTC+0, but I think it is more likely to stay on UTC+1 too. Likewise, various eastern European countries "ought" to change to UTC+2, but would almost certainly make the decision as a bloc rather than piecemeal. And the Nordic countries, which share latitude-related issues, would be highly likely to make a joint decision too.
I'm not too worried about countries moving their standard time relative to each other. But I could easily imagine some countries deciding to try out not changing back to standard time one winter and then then deciding the next winter that maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all and reintroducing standard time. Philip -- Philip Paeps Senior Reality Engineer Ministry of Information
Note that the number of respondents to the online 'referendum' amount to less than 1% of the total number of people in EU. This qualification is not made clear by media outlets such as CNN and others which claim that more than 80% of the Europeans want to abolish daylight saving. Rob van Gent Utrecht University -----Original Message----- From: tz <tz-bounces@iana.org> On Behalf Of Marshall Eubanks Sent: Fri 31 August 2018 14:34 To: Time Zone Database discussion <tz@iana.org> Subject: [tz] BBC: Clock changes: EU backs ending daylight saving Clearly, not going to happen that soon. Regards https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45366390 The EU Commission is proposing to end the practice of adjusting clocks by an hour in spring and autumn after a survey found most Europeans opposed it. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said millions "believe that in future, summer time should be year-round, and that's what will happen". The Commission's proposal requires support from the 28 national governments and MEPs to become law. In the EU clocks switch between winter and summer under daylight saving time. A European Parliament resolution says it is "crucial to maintain a unified EU time regime". However, the Commission has not yet drafted details of the proposed change. In a consultation paper it said one option would be to let each member state decide whether to go for permanent summer or winter time. That would be "a sovereign decision of each member state", Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein explained on Friday.
participants (6)
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Brian Inglis -
Gent, R.H. van (Rob) -
John Wilcock -
Marshall Eubanks -
Paul Eggert -
Philip Paeps