With a couple of days delay, the European Commission public consultation on summertime arrangements and daylight saving time has been finally uploaded on the EC website. Consulting EU citizens on the issue follows a European Parliament decision last February that has called for a review of the twice-yearly hour changes across the bloc. A petition by Finnish citizens and health concerns have led to the move. European Parliament members voted 384 to 153 in a non-binding resolution on Thursday to urge the European Commission to carry out a “thorough assessment” of the daylight saving time (DST) arrangements for summer time and, if necessary “come up with a proposal for its revision.”
And here we are. In the public opinion survey, EU citizens can decide whether they want
- a. the summer/winter time arrangement to be abolished
and
- b. if they want only summer or winter time.
In its introduction note, the European Commission writes:
Following a number of requests from citizens, from the European Parliament, and from certain EU Member States, the Commission has decided to investigate the functioning of the current EU summertime arrangements and to assess whether or not they should be changed.
In this context, the Commission is interested in gathering the views of European citizens, stakeholders and Member States on the current EU summertime arrangements and on any potential change to those arrangements.
The public consultation runs from 4. July until 16 August 2018.
The online questionnaire is short and is accessible in all official EU languages (except Irish) and replies may be submitted in any EU language. The EC encourages citizens to answer as much as possible in English though.
- You may pause at any time and continue later. Once you have submitted your answers, you can download a copy of your completed responses.
- You can also upload documents, such as position papers, or send them to the contact e-mail.
- Received contributions will be published on this page. If the contributor objects to the publication of his/her personal information, the contribution will be published in anonymous form. If a document is uploaded to the contribution, it may be published unaltered together with the response.
Click here for the European Commission public consultation
Please, take part and ask for summertime for ever 🙂
PS It is a once in a life time chance the EU asks its citizens.
Many are confused with permanent summertime and permanent wintertime.
Permanent summertime although it has a word “summer” in it’s name is terrible idea.
Permanent wintertime is way to go (Time during winter would stay the same, with permanent summertime in winter we would have sunrise one hour later!)
So i could have a beer in the sun after work.