European Parliament Set To End EU-Wide Daylight Saving (dw.com) 206
The European Commission and European Parliament are set to end daylight saving time in 2021, at least in some states. "Now that the lead committee on transport and tourism has given its blessing, by a large majority, EU lawmakers could vote on the change by the end of March," reports Deutsche Welle. "After that, all 28 member states will need to rubberstamp the ruling." From the report: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker's brash statement back in September, asserting that the amendment would go ahead quickly, has proven to be premature. At the time, Juncker was referring to an overwhelming response to an EU online survey, where an unexpected 80 percent of respondents said the practice of changing the clock twice a year was outdated. But the survey was not representative, with 3 million of the 4.6 million votes coming from Germany. This led to diplomats from smaller EU countries complaining behind closed doors that the European Commission wanted to impose German will on the other states through sheer populism.
Juncker was keen to abolish the twice-yearly time shift by spring, probably so he could claim, before European Parliament elections in May, that the will of the people had been reflected. But some member states demanded a transitional period up to 2021. Good things come to those who wait, it seems, especially in the EU. As a compromise for the repeal of the "Directive on summer time," spring or autumn in 2020 has now been suggested. This means that by June EU states will have to draw the lines for each time zone and decide what time those places will set their clocks to, and when. Some EU members -- including the United Kingdom, Greece and Portugal -- want to stick to the old rules and continue to switch between summer and winter time through the year. Cyprus, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Ireland have not decided. The other states want to get rid of the twice-yearly change, but still have to decide which time will apply.
Juncker was keen to abolish the twice-yearly time shift by spring, probably so he could claim, before European Parliament elections in May, that the will of the people had been reflected. But some member states demanded a transitional period up to 2021. Good things come to those who wait, it seems, especially in the EU. As a compromise for the repeal of the "Directive on summer time," spring or autumn in 2020 has now been suggested. This means that by June EU states will have to draw the lines for each time zone and decide what time those places will set their clocks to, and when. Some EU members -- including the United Kingdom, Greece and Portugal -- want to stick to the old rules and continue to switch between summer and winter time through the year. Cyprus, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Ireland have not decided. The other states want to get rid of the twice-yearly change, but still have to decide which time will apply.
Thank goodness (Score:2)
for constantly updated tzdata files.
Otherwise, how would you know what time it is someplace else? Unless you use UTC...
UK (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we have a situation where the Brexiteer propaganda machine has won a huge victory because "The EU" is imposing on us what we actually want, so of course we don't want it. (We are totally committed to cutting of our noses to spite our faces as well as shooting our selves in the foot).
It is the British way!
Re:UK (Score:5, Interesting)
I found out about the survey (I am in the UK) and voted to end DST... when the server stayed up long enough to accept my vote. (It was crashing under the weight of people trying to use it, not being DDoSed, it seems.)
Rgds
Damon
Re:UK (Score:4, Funny)
It was crashing under the weight of incompetence. Seriously the target audience of the survey was 700million people and it couldn't cope with 4 million spread out over quite a long period. No doubt the survey itself was running on a TI-84 with a serial link to a modem.
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I was on the fence before, but I think this article has the best stats and arguments for keeping DST. Or implementing it for all 12 months, not just 8.
https://www.popularmechanics.c... [popularmechanics.com]
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Or implementing it for all 12 months, not just 8.
I think when most people say they want to get rid of DST, they really mean they just want to get rid of having to adjust twice a year. I know better and I often make that mistake.
I only skimmed the article because I'm firmly entrenched in my views on adjusting my clocks (including my own physical one) twice a year. I'd sooner just have everyone use GMT. We'd just get used to the fact that in California the sun rises sometime around noon and that now Hawaii is a land of the midnight sun.
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The only problem is you'd have clueless PHBs that insist that 9:00 is 9:00, so the office will not be changing it's hours when the clock goes to GMT. Anyonme who thinks they're going to lazily saunter into the office at 12:00 (just as the sun is rising) can find a new job. It's the same reason the proposal to pin the clock to an offset and let businesses have summer hours and winter hours is a non-starter.
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So how did you find out about it? Were you contacted by the survey people or did you find out via some third party. Because if third parties were the main means by which people found out about the survey then the survey us potentially useless. If this third party can figure a way of notifying lots of people they think will vote in a particular direction then that obviously would skew the result.
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Yeah the UK suffers horribly under the EU. How can May and her fellow politicians score a win for the people when that damn EU keeps doing it first. I especially like how May declared the abolishion of mobile roaming fees as one of *her* successes.
Re:UK (Score:4, Interesting)
The EU is under-represented in the UK. In other countries you see it everywhere - anything funded by EU money has an EU flag on it, and institutions are proud to mention that they are doing stuff with or funded by the EU. The media is much more engaged with what the EU is doing and doesn't consider it a separate organization, it's another democratic institution along side the national government.
That's why the UK was so vulnerable to brexit. People really thought it was like some kind of club they could just cancel their membership of and walk away. Someone guy on the TV was talking about how upset he was because he thought that a few days after the vote the UK would be out - he didn't even read the official Leave campaign's leaflet apparently.
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The EU is under-represented in the UK. In other countries you see it everywhere - anything funded by EU money has an EU flag on it, and institutions are proud to mention that they are doing stuff with or funded by the EU. The media is much more engaged with what the EU is doing and doesn't consider it a separate organization, it's another democratic institution along side the national government.
That's why the UK was so vulnerable to brexit. People really thought it was like some kind of club they could just cancel their membership of and walk away. Someone guy on the TV was talking about how upset he was because he thought that a few days after the vote the UK would be out - he didn't even read the official Leave campaign's leaflet apparently.
And that kind of arrogant attitude from EU is exactly the reason for brexit. First you take 13 bil GBP as a membership fee, then in thy holy graciousness and benevolence deign to give 4 bil GBP of that back as a funding for various projects, and then expect the Brits to kiss the ground in front of thy holy feet in slavering gratitude, and pretty much tattoo a "funded by EU" logo on the forehead of anyone who came within 10 kilometers of that money.
Well, guess what, that doesn't seem to sit very well with th
Re:UK (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't seem to be aware of the massive benefits to business (and therefor the government via taxes) from being in the EU. It's not just a matter of working out if payments to the EU are greater than payments from the EU. And that doesn't even factor in the number of EU workers propping up vital institutions like the NHS, or the EU immigrants who are paying more taxes than they get from the government, etc. etc. etc.
You're proving their point - people who don't understand the EU being angry about the EU.
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EU workers propping up vital institutions like the NHS
It used to be easy for Nurses and Doctors from the Commonwealth to work in the NHS.
However EU rules made it considerably harder for those people to gain accreditation yet made it much, much easier for EU citizens whose English is often terrible or those with suspicious qualifications.
You make it sound like any EU citizens working in the NHS will be deported instantly - absolute bullshit.
Why don't you post what is GOOD about belonging in the EU rather than doom-and-gloom about leaving ? Something the Remain
Re:UK (Score:5, Insightful)
First you take 13 bil GBP as a membership fee, then in thy holy graciousness and benevolence deign to give 4 bil GBP of that back as a funding for various projects
Yep and that's all you got for 13bn. 4bn back. You certainly didn't get access to a wide range of markets, institutions, technology, partnerships, or anything else that contributed to your economy. And that is perfectly reflected in the fact that when Brexit was announced nothing changed. I mean it's not like your economy started massively under performing, or that companies relocated their headquarters, right?
Membership in the EU is nothing more than a financial transaction where you pay money in exchange for putting a flag on a flagpole. /incredibly-bewildered-sarcasm.
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That's why the UK was so vulnerable to brexit. People really thought it was like some kind of club they could just cancel their membership of and walk away. Someone guy on the TV was talking about how upset he was because he thought that a few days after the vote the UK would be out - he didn't even read the official Leave campaign's leaflet apparently.
Which one?
I read both the Leave.eu and Vote Leave campaign leaflets. Neither actually gave an indication of what post Brexit UK would actually look like, what plans were for economic stability, trade relations with out largest trading partner or even what kind of Brexit they wanted. All they said was "Take BACK Control", a bunch of misleading figures (oft painted on the side of a bus) and allusions to illegal immigrants.
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The Vote Leave one proposed to negotiate a future trade agreement and all other matters relating to leaving before triggering Article 50.
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it's another democratic institution along side the national government.
The idea of the EU government being democratic is laughable and it's long term plan does not involve it working alongside National Governments. It's aim is to be supra-national - why otherwise does it seek it's own defence assets ? How is that going to work alongside Nato ?
The EU's long term plan is a quasi-sovereign state run by the French and Germans to serve their primary interests. Actually no, it's mainly to serve German interests as they are bankrolling it, the French are useful idiots at this point.
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I am pretty sure a majority in the UK wand to get rid of changing the clocks.
Get Harry Potter to do it.
It is the UK after all.
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I hope not.
Re: UK (Score:3)
Sensible compromise (albeit somewhat worthy of a Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett novel): make Britain GMT+0:30 year-round, with the exception of the Greenwich Observatory & its parking lot, plus some symbolic (but small) radius centered upon Stonehenge, which would be GMT year-round.
A sensible combination of pragmatic compromise and symbolism.
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1) You are anonymous so don't have the balls to insult someone directly
2) For many countries, EU Directives are treated as suggestions and basically ignored.
3) The UK and other advanced economies had standards long before the EU.
4) You are a paid Brussels shill and I claim my five euros.
UK? (Score:2)
Who dat and why does the rest of the EU care? :D
Seriously though it's about time. But knowing my luck, they'll be using summer time. However, being constantly one hour off beats switching twice a year. By a long shot.
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I prefer BST, it gets dark far too early in winter, if farmers want to get up early then fine, they can and will, farmers have far more choice than your average worker. In British winter (spring) the sun wakes me up too early and it's still dark before I even set off home.
What a bunch of Cnuts (Score:2)
I'm happy to stop changing the clocks, but I don't want to stick to summer time. I don't like the sky still being bright at night when I need to get to sleep for work in the morning.
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Fuck off?
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Fuck off?
Well yeah that is an option too.
Re:What a bunch of Cnuts (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't like the sky still being bright at night when I need to get to sleep for work in the morning.
I like the sky being light at night when I'm awake. I don't like it being light at 5am when I'm trying to sleep to a reasonable time before getting up for work.
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Sometimes the Sun comes up at 5AM, sometimes at 10AM. The sun keeps moving about.
Its not the EU that does it, its God. (no, I don't mean Trump). If you don't like it, go to church and pray for God to have a re-think. Or fit blackout blinds behind your curtains, like most shift workers.
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Mmm, yes, blackout blinds are definitely our friends, and free of religion and (most) ceremony!
Rgds
Damon
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I don't like the sky still being bright at night when I need to get to sleep for work in the morning.
Get curtains.
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Day length changes from ~8h to ~16h in the UK between winter and summer. No single fixed shift (especially of an hour) is or ever will suit all use cases. We should be adapting our work and travel (etc) patterns with the seasons to reflect that. The council cemetery opposite me manages a simple schedule of opening to only let people in when it's light, for example.
Rgds
Damon
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The worse thing would be that during winter, people have to drive about in pitch black darkness when going to work. Sunrise in Stockholm is at about 8:30 in Midwinter. With perpetual DST it would be 9:30. Even twilight is something you don't encounter until about 7:30, or 8:30 in perpetual DST. I don't know when schools start in your area, but I'd not feel good sending my kids to school when it's night.
I mean, it's fine for people in Palermo, they have daylight from 7:20 (or 8:20 with perpetual DST), but th
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Permanent DST is evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem with DST is that people don't understand the consequences of their choices. An oft heard argument is that one wants to keep DST year round, because they're a night dweller and they like the extra hour of light at the end of the day in winter too.
What they don't understand is there is also an extra hour of dark at the start of the day. They'll have to get up an hour earlier in winter because of permanent DST. Consequently they'll have to go to bed an hour earlier. Exactly the opposite a night dweller would want.
Personally I don't care if we abandon DST. I live in the Netherlands, which is quite northerly. We get about 8 hours of sunlight in winter, and 16 hours in summer. But please for the love of god don't establish DST year round. I'd like to have the sun up before 9:30 please.
Re:Permanent DST is evil (Score:5, Insightful)
What they don't understand is there is also an extra hour of dark at the start of the day.
And? It's night when we get up, it's night when we're at work. That is EXACTLY what we want. Shitty useless lack of sunshine during work hours, and nice useful sunshine during pleasure hours.
They'll have to get up an hour earlier in winter because of permanent DST.
Actually they'll get up at the exact same local time.
But please for the love of god don't establish DST year round. I'd like to have the sun up before 9:30 please.
Nope, screw the sun in the morning. We don't need it.
Re:Permanent DST is evil (Score:4, Interesting)
You must be a morning person then. Good on you.
Lot's of people need sunlight for their natural sleep/wake cycles. Shifting the time an hour away from the natural time zone makes it harder for most people.
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You must be a morning person then. Good on you.
No. I hate it. The morning could not exist as far as I care. The ability to sit in the park at 11pm in summer and have a BBQ is a guilty pleasure of mine and getting up before about 11am sucks.
Lot's of people need sunlight for their natural sleep/wake cycles. Shifting the time an hour away from the natural time zone makes it harder for most people.
If you need sunlight to wake you up the get a sun clock, because no single adjustment in any timezone will ever fix the problems you're experience. The vast majority of the European population experiences large variances in daylight hours between summer and winter. Technology exists to fix your problem, there's no tec
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Lot's of people need sunlight for their natural sleep/wake cycles.
I honestly have no idea what you're arguing about. If you need sunlight, then make sure you get sunlight.
That has absolutely no bearing on whether or not we change the time on the clock twice a year. You do what's right for you.
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I still have to go to work, which still starts at 9, so I still have to get up around 7:00 ~ 7:30. Which would be at least 3 hours before sunrise if my country would choose permanent DST.
So no, I cannot do what's right for me which is live by the solar cycle.
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Which would be at least 3 hours before sunrise if my country would choose permanent DST.
As opposed to the two hours before sunrise that you already have to deal with somehow.
How hard would it be to do that somehow for an additional hour on winter mornings?Either way, you're at work before the sun comes up.
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You're happy with sending your kids to school in darkness?
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You're happy with sending your kids to school in darkness?
This is a terrible argument and in my experience the whole bullshit of "won't someone please think of the children" is usually covering for some other piss poor excuse.
For the record, I don't care if it is dark out when my kids go to school.
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From time to time the argument works. Because this is really about the kids. I know that in rural areas around here, kids still walk to school. And walking about alone in the dark is scary.
Re:Permanent DST is evil (Score:5, Informative)
From time to time the argument works. Because this is really about the kids. I know that in rural areas around here, kids still walk to school. And walking about alone in the dark is scary.
I live in a rural area as well. We have no problems. Nor did our parents, grandparents or great grandparents.
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Maybe because you didn't go to school an hour early in Winter?
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Maybe because you didn't go to school an hour early in Winter?
I'm not sure about you, but where I live it is still dark after school starts for several days/weeks in the winter. So it's already happening. Nobody keeps their kids home from school because of that. Hell, there isn't any mention of it as a concern.
So this isn't a real concern. Of course I'm not not lobbying the federal government to make a change. It is decided at the state level. So I've been asking my state reps to consider the change. It gains more support every year and I think it will eventual
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Maybe because you didn't go to school an hour early in Winter?
I'm more inclined to believe he's not a softcock.
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From time to time the argument works. Because this is really about the kids. I know that in rural areas around here, kids still walk to school. And walking about alone in the dark is scary.
I live in a rural area as well. We have no problems. Nor did our parents, grandparents or great grandparents.
Well, is that because DST stops it being dark when your kids (and you, and your parents, and your grandparents) went to school?
No, DST isn't in effect then. But even so, it is still dark after school starts without it. So there wouldn't be much of a different in the morning if we used DST year round. Let's be realistic here: the morning hours are not productive in most societies. You can't work outdoors within city limits in most places before 8AM anyway. So why not have that sunlight available later in the day?
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That's a local problem. That's not a whole continent's problem. Hell, probably not a whole country's problem either.
If it's a problem for your community, change when school starts.
Why the fuck do you think your local problem should require everyone in the world to change their clocks twice a year?
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A zillion years ago, we delayed falling back one year, so I went to school in the dark. I can assure you, me and the other kids quite enjoyed it. It was a great excuse to take a flashlight to school if nothing else.
These days, they'd probably enjoy how well the LEDs in their sneakers show up.
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Re:Permanent DST is evil (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I don't care if we abandon DST. I live in the Netherlands, which is quite northerly. We get about 8 hours of sunlight in winter, and 16 hours in summer. But please for the love of god don't establish DST year round. I'd like to have the sun up before 9:30 please.
I'm in Southern Europe. We're not on DST yet, and sunrise this morning was at 6:04 AM. I rarely get up before 7:15-7:30 AM. Sun at 6? I don't care. Neither do most people, standard working hours are from 8:30. In January, sunrise is around 7:15. With permanent DST, it would be 8:15. It gets lighter (morning twilight) about an hour or so before sunrise of course. And January days here are usually grey and gloomy anyways, most days you won't see the sun.
With DST, sunrise in August is around 5:30-45 AM. In June it's 5:00 AM, which means morning twilight is already at 4. Without it, it would 4:30 AM in August, 4 AM in June and twilight an hour earlier. Pretty useless for most people, and also sleep-interrupting.
In conclusion, I want DST year round, i.e. to move permanently to the GMT+2 time zone. The "natural" time zone in most of the country is about GMT+1.5 anyways, so we're off by half an hour either way.
It has occurred to me through these discussions about DST that time zones should not only be made east to west, but also north to south. What makes in Scandinavia might not make sense in Central Europe and neither of that might make sense in the Mediterranean.
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DST isn't your problem, living unnaturally far North is.
He'll remember you said that when you need to move north because his climate is warm and livable and your house is either three feet under water or surrounded by boiling lakes. Shoe on the other foot then, huh?
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We don't all live in the south. Here, sunrise on 1st Jan is 8:40. With yearlong DST, that would be 9:40. And there are people in Europe a lot further north than here.
As I said:
It has occurred to me through these discussions about DST that time zones should not only be made east to west, but also north to south. What makes sense in Scandinavia might not make sense in Central Europe and neither of that might make sense in the Mediterranean.
Denmark and Italy do not need to be in the same time zone.
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Thanks :)
Well, the timezone map is already complex [tadst.com]. It's not nice straight lines anyway, and there are already some north-south differences.
As for working across borders...well, I live in Southern Europe, and work for a company on the west coast of North America. The time difference between us is 9 hours. We manage. I'm sure that a one hour difference between Palermo and Nijmegen would be absolutely manageable. Just like the current one hour difference between London and Paris, or Berlin and Helsinki is too
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Re:Permanent DST is evil (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole point of being on DST permanently is to not get up any earlier and shift that hour of daylight to the evening. People don't care so much if they go to work in the dark, they want their own personal time to be in daylight.
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I can't talk about others, but I wouldn't want to send my kids to school in darkness.
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I can't talk about others, but I wouldn't want to send my kids to school in darkness.
Your local school board could decide on times that make sense for your local conditions.
Yes, I realize that this also involves tradeoffs between parental working hours.
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What's the difference between permanent DST and just permanent non-DST with everyone getting up an hour earlier?
The cartoons finish before I get home from work.
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What's the difference between permanent DST and just permanent non-DST with everyone getting up an hour earlier? Plus, with non-DST at least noon happens when the sun is directly overhead, which has some real meaning.
Do you really think employers are just all going to agree to change people's working hours to better align with non-DST? Good luck with that - I guarantee we won't start and end our work days earlier if we get rid of DST, resulting in us losing an hour of daylight from Spring through Fall, when we all have things to do outside.
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Plus, with non-DST at least noon happens when the sun is directly overhead, which has some real meaning.
Actually, within a standard time zone, high noon will be roughly between 11:30 and 12:30 according to the clock depending on your location.
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The whole point of being on DST permanently is to not get up any earlier and shift that hour of daylight to the evening. People don't care so much if they go to work in the dark, they want their own personal time to be in daylight.
Who cares! I work from home and it's super dark in my parents' basement. /jk
That's silly (Score:3)
The "proper" time standard is thus the one which puts noon as close as possible to when t
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The "proper" time standard is thus the one which puts noon as close as possible to when the sun is directly overhead.
I think the "proper" thing to do is have 20 hours a day with the day starting at local sunrise. Daylight gets divided into 10 equal-length hours and darkness gets divided into another 10 equal-length hours. How long an "hour" is varies, of course, but we'll get used to it :).
More seriously, what is the argument for keeping DST? Does anyone seriously believe it saves energy? Or is it all, as the OP states, people just like having their clocks read the same value at sunrise every day?
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Problem with DST is that people don't understand the consequences of their choices. An oft heard argument is that one wants to keep DST year round, because they're a night dweller and they like the extra hour of light at the end of the day in winter too.
What they don't understand is there is also an extra hour of dark at the start of the day. They'll have to get up an hour earlier in winter because of permanent DST. Consequently they'll have to go to bed an hour earlier. Exactly the opposite a night dweller would want.
Personally I don't care if we abandon DST. I live in the Netherlands, which is quite northerly. We get about 8 hours of sunlight in winter, and 16 hours in summer. But please for the love of god don't establish DST year round. I'd like to have the sun up before 9:30 please.
This, GMT and DST in the UK are designed to maximise the amount of daylight available for work and play after work (in the summer). Here in lovely Berkshire in June the sun is up from 5:00 to 22:00 and in January from 7:30 to 16:30. Adopting GMT the year round means that light goes from 4:00 to 21:00 in the summer, adopting BST year round means that daylight is from 8:30 to 17:30.
As it stands in winter I'm already leaving work in darkness and barely coming to work in daylight... Also I've lived in a plac
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They'll have to get up an hour earlier in winter because of permanent DST. Consequently they'll have to go to bed an hour earlier. Exactly the opposite a night dweller would want.
Relative to the sun, yes, you are right. As a night dweller myself who likes DST, I asked myself that very question. I mean, I shouldn't like that, it means waking up 1 hour earlier, something I normally hate.
But the truth is: it is not just about the sun. It is more about enjoying the quiet moments when everyone else is gone. I suppose morning people get similar feelings when they arrive before everyone else. Permanent DST would allow me to continue doing stuff after others and get an extra hour of sunligh
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Right. We hear a lot about "DST all year round" or, up here, "permanent summertime". It doesn't sound as good if you call it "getting up an hour earlier in the winter".
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UK still getting a vote? (Score:2)
Why doesn't the EU wait until after March 29th to take the vote? UK won't be part of the EU then. It would be weird though having to change your watches going from Southern Ireland to Northern Ireland though, should the UK and Eire adopt different approaches.
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Why doesn't the EU wait until after March 29th to take the vote? UK won't be part of the EU then.
That's a bit presumptuous. Personally I think they'll take from the USA playbook and give that can a good hard kick down the road.
Surprise! (Score:4, Informative)
But the survey was not representative, with 3 million of the 4.6 million votes coming from Germany. This led to diplomats from smaller EU countries complaining behind closed doors that the European Commission wanted to impose German will on the other states through sheer populism.
I'm pretty sure we at Slashdot called it. When you make a decision based on a marketing campaign of a small vocal minority don't expect a smooth change.
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This is both a flawed understanding of surveys and a flawed understanding of how EU democracy works.
There have been calls for this from elected EU representatives for years. The survey was just to gauge public opinion. That more responses came from Germany isn't really an issue - you can just break it down by country and look at ratios individually, while also accounting for the fact that participants were self-selecting.
The way TFA phrases it is just to create some drama. In reality all those smaller state
Since this post has been on top for a while (Score:2)
I guess changing clocks is too hard. When I thought some more about it, the only clocks I actually needed to change were the mechanical clock in the living room and the dumb stove and dumb microwave in the kitchen.
It seems like everything else knows when to spring forward or fall behind. cell phones, tablets, TVs, computers...
The things I hate most about DST is when I wake up at 7;00 and can't figure out if it's AM or PM since the alarm clock can't do 24 hour time.
That and the dark drive to work, to the wi
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they created a mess (Score:2)
when i heard the news i was all excited, that excitement lasted for a few seconds when they said that each country was going to able to choose what they'll want to do for themselves.
really? that is not what we wanted.
now you'll have countries that will not have dst, other will still have it, some will use a different dst then what they have now, and there are even some countries thinking about having something in the middle. and all of these could be neighbouring countries, you could travel from denmark to
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They will be able to choose whether they want to have UTC+0, UTC+1, UTC+2 or UTC+3
So the number of time zones won't change: currently you have +0, +1, +2 and summer time that adds one hour.
What really bothers me is that noon in some Spanish cities in the summer can be as late as 2:30pm (1:30pm in winter). They changed the time zone during WWII but didn't bother to change back.
If Spain chooses UTC+2, they will have sunrise in 9:37am in December.
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I'd predict that you will see a difference between the north, which will more likely want to stick with standard time, and south, who are probably more interested in keeping DST permanently.
"states" (Score:2)
I wonder how many citizens consider their country being a "state" in the EU. I know it is the politician's wet dream, and something they lied about would not happen, to have the United States of Europe.
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The EU only has subjects, not citizens. Citizens can change their government; subjects can't.
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You're in luck, in less than 3 months you get to vote on a new EU parliament.
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I'd guess it's more a translation error than a deliberate push towards a "United States of Europe". For the record, "country" translates to:
État (French)
estado (Spanish)
Estado (Portugese)
stat (Norwegian)
stan (Polish)
stato (Italian)
Staat (German)
stat (Romanian)
stat (Danish)
stáit (Irish)
staat (Dutch)
ástand (Icelandic)
There are a few that don't follow that "logic" like Hungarian or Finnish (but then again, they are not related to any of the large language families spoken in Europe), but none of
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how many citizens consider their country being a "state" in the EU. I know it is the politician's wet dream, and something they lied about would not happen, to have the United States of Europe.
The term state has been used to refer to countries in a generic sense for generations. Deal with it, and don't apply a USA-centric model to this when you know that meaning was not intended. You're reading something into the terminology, incorrectly.
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Perhaps, I hope I am. :)
But it's the feeling I get from the EU happy politicians that it's what they want.
(It's not that I am not against the EU as such.)
Mislading headline (Score:2)
Please! (Score:3)
Please, let us follow suit in the US. So tired of it.
I can't even list all the annoyances. Here's one I haven't thrown out there before, I get to have the sun in my eyes for a week or two while driving to work, not once, but twice! Once because the days got longer, and again because we fiddled with the clock.
Yay, the kids aren't in the dark at the bus stop anymo ...oh, wait, yeah, they are. Again.
The UK wants to end it. (Score:2)
Just split the difference (Score:2)
There's nothing that says timezones HAVE to be exactly one hour apart, and several countries already have timezones that split the difference and lie on a half-hour boundary instead.
30 minutes is enough to give most of the benefit of extra daylight in the evening after work, while reducing the hardship of early-morning darkness to a couple of weeks.
Guaranteed, if the EU splits the difference for Central European time, the US will do the same thing within a year or two (and vice-versa).
Most people don't want
It'll be fine! You'll get used to it! (Score:3)
Every time this topic comes up, there's belly-aching about which time should be the permanent time. Late summer brightness or early summer brightness. Here's the thing-- people will complain at decreasing levels as time goes on. You'll get used to whatever change happens.
It would be great (Score:2)
Right now it is unclear if this ever will become reality. If they change it then this might be in 2021 at the soonest. A lot of bullshit can happen until then.
about time to end this abomination (Score:2)
somebody has the sense to end this useless barnacle of an abomination — good riddance!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure if you're joking or if you don't understand how this works.
If we're only removing one of the two the clock will move forwards (or backwards) an hour in each of the 5 years, resulting in watches being completly out of sync with the sun, the rest of the world and, well, everything.
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Well, to be fair, we would sync with the rest of the world. A different part of the world every year, sure, but still.