Presently each European Union member country puts their clocks forward by an hour on the last Sunday in March. They then put clocks back an hour on the last Sunday of October. After The EU ran a public survey about whether to abolish daylight saving time (DST) and a resounding more than 80 percent of citizens in EU states said yes.

CNN reports that if the change goes through, EU states will stay on the current summertime, thus finally putting an end to daylight saving time.

DST is a waste of time

Living as I do in Spain, I am affected by changing the clocks four times a year.

This not only upsets a person’s body clock, but it also affects our dogs’ internal clocks. When putting the time forward, pets start nagging for food or a walk an hour early and it takes time for their doggie brains to adjust. Even worse is the fact that Spain lives on “Hitler” time. When Francisco Franco was in power, he was fond of the Nazi dictator and changed Spain’s time in line with that of Berlin. There were talks some years ago of changing the time zone to what it should be, but nothing has happened yet.

80 percent of Europeans want to end daylight saving time

As reported by the BBC, Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission President made the announcement on Friday.

He said that the widely-spread public survey had revealed that 80 percent of European citizens want to stop daylight saving time.

Speaking to ZDF, a German broadcaster, Juncker said the debate about winter time and summer time had been going on for several years. He said many people had added contributions to the debate, but the public survey showed real results.

According to Juncker, millions of people responded to the poll, with the vast majority saying they want summertime all year around. Juncker went on to say that if people want to change DST, they will change it and that it will happen.

Reportedly Finns are the strongest voice against DST.

A petition was signed by more than 70,000 Finns last October, urging the Finnish government to stop it. What complicates things for Finland is the fact they share borders with Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, who did away with changing the clocks back in 2011.

Legislation to be drafted for member nations’ approval

Many of those who are still in favour of the time change have said the extra hour’s light in standard time and the additional hour of evening light in summer reportedly prevents road accidents.

Before the change can be made official, the legislation has to be drafted and presented to the 28 member states along with the European Parliament. Here’s hoping Spain finally decides to not only scrap daylight savings but also to move to the correct time zone for the country’s location.
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