Clock Change will end in Europe in October 2019, the European Commission announced on Friday. Each member state will have the freedom to decide for itself whether its citizens will live in endless summer or winter time. EU members will have to made their decisions by April 2019.
“There will be no more seasonal clock changes as of the end of October 2019,” EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulk told a news conference on Friday.
EU member states will change clocks for one more time to summer time in the last Sunday of March 2019. Those members that will decide to keep the winter time, will be able to do so in the last Sunday of October 2019.
The EU decision follows a survey conducted by the European Commission in summer. 84% of the over 4.6 million participants said that they don’t want keep changing the clocks anymore.
“They want the summer time for all seasons and so will happen,” President of European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker revealed last month.
Seasonal time changes are outdated and were implemented during the WWII and in the 1970’s oil crisis to save energy, the Commission said.
“Newer studies confirm that the energy savings are nowadays marginal,” Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic said. “We are clearly heading towards smart cities, smart buildings and smart solutions which will bring much more savings than changes of the clock.”
Research has shown that the time change disrupts sleep schedules and can impact productivity at work.
Critics of switching the clocks twice a year say it can cause long-term health problems, especially among young children and elderly people.
Supporters say making the switch to give extra morning daylight in winter and evening light in summer can help reduce traffic accidents and save energy.
The European Parliament and the 28 national governments will need to find common positions by the end of 2018, the Commission said and added it will leave EU countries to take decisions where they are best placed to do so.
“Either we will stay with summer time or those countries that decide to go to winter time, they will switch to winter time in October (2019) and that will be it,” Bulk said.
It should be notice that winter time is time by default and the summer time is the little extra light during summer.
Depending on the EU member states decisions, citizens with contacts outside their own countries will do need quite some time to adjust themselves with the new clock conditions.
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Loading ...PS I don’t know according to which criteria individual EU member states will take their decisions, but I long to see winter darkness fall into Greece at 4:45 p.m. for the last time this year. 🙂
