2024-03-07 04:07:43
The marmot greets you every six months: Summer time starts again this year on Easter Sunday, on the night of March 31st. The hands will advance at 2:00 to 3:00 in Europe. A proposal to end this procedure has been on the table in the EU since 2018, but there is still no agreement in sight.
The corresponding Commission proposal from 2018 was already approved by the EU Parliament in spring 2019. Since then, however, the ball has been in the Council’s court, i.e. the EU member states, which have not made a decision since then. However, the member states would have to agree to the abolition by a majority. As things stand, it is not to be expected that the current Belgian Council Presidency plans to put the issue up for debate again, EU circles told the APA.
It remains to be seen whether Hungary, which will hold the Council presidency in the second half of 2024, will put the issue back on the agenda. However, the last time that a Council of Ministers dealt with the time change was in December 2019, when it was still under the Finnish presidency.
The EU Commission’s proposal stipulates that there will be no more time changes. However, it should be up to each member state of the Union to decide whether to switch to summer or winter time all year round. But many countries expressed concerns about this plan because, among other things, a uniform time zone seemed desirable for the economy, at least in Central Europe. Otherwise, interstate time differences could affect trade. By the way, official Austria prefers constant summer time as standard time.
The process of abolition was started by an EU-wide (non-representative) online survey. In this event, 84 percent of participants were in favor of ending the time change. Most voted for permanent daylight saving time in 2018. 4.6 million answers were received, including three million from Germany alone – a record, but still less than one percent of EU citizens.
Across the EU, the clock has so far been turned on the last Sunday in March – and back again on the last Sunday in October. Summer time was introduced in Europe in 1973 on the occasion of the oil crisis and with the aim of saving energy. The time difference was intended to gain one hour of daylight for companies and households. France was the first to do so.
Austria only decided to introduce it in 1979 because of administrative problems and because it wanted harmonization of transport technology with Switzerland and Germany. These two countries only introduced daylight saving time in 1980. However, summer time already existed in the Alpine republic during the First World War. In 1916 it applied to the monarchy from May 1st to September 30th, but was then discontinued. A second – ultimately unsuccessful – attempt was made between 1940 and 1948.
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