Rebelote. Sunday October 31, at 3 a.m., it will actually be 2 a.m. When you wake up, you will therefore have to adjust your (biological) watches and clocks. While it means an extra hour of sleep, this switch to winter time is also a source of questions for European citizens. Remember: in September 2018, the European Commission proposed to abolish the time change … in 2019.
Generalized within the European Union in 1980 to save energy (at the time often produced by fuel oil) by benefiting from an additional hour of sunshine, the time change will therefore once again disrupt your habits. What happened to cause this measure to be postponed? Franceinfo goes back.
The first postponement came in March 2019, when MEPs voted by a very large majority to support the European Commission’s proposal for a directive, while leaving member states two years to organize themselves. At that time, the calendar predicted that countries wishing to stay in daylight saving time would make the last time change on the last Sunday in March 2021, and that those preferring to keep winter time could go up one last time. times their clocks on the last Sunday of October 2021.
France then leaned for the first option: an online consultation organized in 2019 by the European Affairs Committee of the National Assembly had received more than two million responses, overwhelmingly (83.74%) in favor of the end of the change. hour. More than 60% of those who participated claimed to have had “a negative or very negative experience”. As for the time to stay all year round, it was summer that was preferred by 59% of participants.
The directive should normally be adopted by the European Council at the end of 2020, then transposed by the member states, but the diplomatic and health context abruptly relegated the question of the time change to the bottom of the list of priorities of the Twenty-Seven, explained to franceinfo last March Sabine Thillaye, LREM member of Indre-et-Loire and president of the European affairs committee of the National Assembly.
The reform is blocked because of the change in political priorities: the current health crisis of course but also Brexit. It should be remembered that the last time European ministers met on this topic was on December 2, 2019.
Sabine Thillaye, President of the European Affairs Committee of the National Assemblyto franceinfo
According to the Vie-publique.fr website, “this text on the end of the time change is no longer on the agenda and should not be discussed in the near future”.
A hypothetical return of this file may also be synonymous with complex discussions for the Twenty-Seven, who want to prevent a “patchwork of different hours” is taking place on the continent, according to Swedish MEP Marita Ulvskog, who presented the text to the European Parliament two and a half years ago.
The situation could indeed be particularly complex for cross-border commuters. Imagine, for example, that Germany chooses to remain in winter time and that France decides to switch to summer time definitively: it would be 8 p.m. in France while with our neighbors, however located in the Est, it would only be 7pm.