MEPs to vote on clock change: 93% of Spaniards want permanent summer hours
Tuesday, March 26, 2019 @ 12:42 PM
EUROPEAN Members of Parliament are set to vote tomorrow (Tuesday) on what to do about the bi-annual hour change, with a view to ending its compulsory nature from March 2021.
Those member States which want to remain on winter hours year-round will not have to change their clocks in the year 2021 until October, MEPs explain.
A continent-wide survey last July and August sought to find out the views of the European Union’s 510 million residents.
This was answered by 4.6 million citizens, and revealed that 84% of European residents, rising to 93% of people based in Spain, want to keep summer hours year-round.
This would mean that in Spain, in the deep winter, it would not start to get dark until just before 19.00 and daylight would not begin in the mornings until nearly 09.00, but that the usual summertime daylight hours of about 06.30 to 21.30 would continue.
This goes completely against the views of those who have long advocated Spain return to GMT, which is its natural geographical time zone – in line with the UK, Morocco and Portugal and which is observed in the Canary Islands.
Spain moved forward an hour during the Civil War as dictator General Franco wanted to be in the same time zone as his allies in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, but after the end of World War II, France’s leader Général de Gaulle sought to keep the whole of mainland western Europe on the same time in order to promote peace and harmony.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com