The long march towards the next, eighth, EU summer time directive has begun. The last directive told the Commission to produce proposals for the next directive by 1 Jan 96. These people have no concept of deadlines so they finally got around to it on 25 April. It proposes no change to the current rules of last Sunday in March to last Sunday in October, always at 01:00 GMT. It proposes that the directive should run for four years and gives dates as follows: year start end 1998 29 Mar 25 Oct 1999 28 Mar 31 Oct 2000 26 Mar 29 Oct 2001 25 Mar 28 Oct It says that having it run for four years is important to the transport industry, etc. This wording appeared in the proposal for the seventh directive but that was eventually knocked back to only three years. This one may go the same way. It says, as did the 7th directive, that these dates/times don't apply to overseas territories of the Member States. The document reference is COM(96) 106 final. Attached to the proposal is a report from the Commission on the application of summer time in the EU which is interesting from a UK perspective. It seems to be enthusiastically in favour of what it lists as `option 2': the moving of the UK into the central European timezone. The effect is slightly spolied by prominent notes at the start and end to the effect that the timezone that Member States inhabit is nothing whatever to do with the Commission. The UK government still hasn't formally decided what to do about this issue. I am sure they just wish it would go away so they never have to decide. With Portugal having rejoined the UK and Eire in the GMT zone I still can't see the UK changing. Peter Ilieve peter@aldie.co.uk