SCIENTISTS have warned that putting Spain back onto GMT as it was before World War II would be 'disastrous' and do little or nothing to improve the work-life balance.
Head of Applied Physics at Santiago de Compostela University in Galicia, Dr Jorge Mira, says turning the clocks back 'would solve nothing' and 'would even bring more problems'.
He says he and fellow scientists are 'observing with a great deal of panic' how those in favour of placing Spain on Greenwich Mean Time are 'looking at a flat map of the world, when the Earth is actually round', leading to 'arguments which are little more than fallacy'.
Dr Mira says mainland Spain is on the correct time lag if the map is globe-shaped, and that the country's way of life would carry on as normal 'whatever the hands on the clock say'.
“The sun is going to keep on rising and setting just as before,” he stresses.
“For example, if someone leaves work at 18.00 and, with the clock change, this means going home in the dark, all that's happened is that life now involves an extra hour of darkness – and if, in compensation, you start work an hour earlier, then you're in exactly the same position as we're in now.”
He says Spain is erroneously trying to compare itself with northern Europe, which has fewer hours of daylight in winter and more in summer than the south.
And he debunks the long-running tale of how dictator General Franco put the clocks forward an hour to align with his Nazi and Fascist allies in Germany and Italy during the War.
“During World War II and the Spanish Civil War, there were numerous time-zone changes throughout Europe – it was actually French president Charles de Gaulle who, at the end of the second World War, wanted to keep Central European Time, and Spain chose to remain in line with France.
“So the current CET time zone in Spain is European, French, and driven by De Gaulle, not by the Nazis, and France and Spain are on the same latitude.”
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