The European Parliament voted to end the time change a few years ago. Why don’t we hear about it anymore?
European Union member states, including France, switch to winter time on the night of Saturday October 28 to Sunday October 29. At 3 a.m. it will actually be 2 a.m., saving the entire population an hour of sleep. Established in France in 1975, the time change was intended to save energy following the oil shock of 1973-1974 and the surge in oil prices.
It was harmonized at European level in 1998. However, for several years, it has been observed that there is no real effect on these energy savings, the measure is therefore contested.
The proposal to remove the time change was therefore made by the European Commission in 2018, to come into force in 2019. But this was postponed to 2021, following a vote by the European Parliament. Since then, the issue has no longer been on the table, and the various crises that have affected the European Union for some time (Brexit, Covid, war in Ukraine, etc.) have only postponed the treatment of the subject.
In reality, the subject is no longer on the agenda of the institutions of the European Union, neither the European Commission nor the Parliament intend to bring this issue back to the table, as priorities have evolved). It must be said that for the initiated project to succeed, it was still necessary to go through major, long and complex stages: to get all the countries of the European Union to agree, and they themselves had the mission of having the project validated by their citizens; get all the countries to agree on the time at which everyone was going to stay all year – the debates promised to be very difficult.
The site vie-publique.fr confirms: “The directive was to be adopted by the Council at the end of 2020, then transposed by the Member States. However, due to the health crisis linked to Covid-19, this text on the end of change time is no longer on the agenda and should not be discussed in the near future.” In France, during a consultation carried out in 2019, 83.74% of those questioned wanted this system to end, with summer time being favored by 59%.
