The ball is still in the hands of the EU Council of Ministers, which last discussed the abolition of the twice-yearly time change in June 2019. The transport ministers are responsible. In March 2019, the European Parliament voted by a large majority to abolish summer time by 2021 – or a year later if there were difficulties for the internal market. However, a majority of the member states would have to agree for this to become a reality.
A vote is now a long way off. The topic has not been taken up since 2019, according to the EU Commission. Not least because of Corona, the topic of time change in the EU receded into the background.
Austria prefers permanent summer time
The process of abolition was started by an EU-wide online survey. In this, 84 percent of the participants had spoken out in favor of an end to the time change. Most voted in 2018 for a permanent summer time. 4.6 million answers were received, three million of them from Germany alone – a record, but still less than one percent of EU citizens.
The EU Commission then proposed to abolish the change between summer and winter time (or normal time) from 2019. Instead, the states should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to have summer or winter time permanently. However, concerns about this plan came from many countries, since, among other things, a uniform time zone appears desirable for the economy, at least in Central Europe. Otherwise, interstate time differences would affect trade even more. Official Austria prefers a permanent summer time as standard time.
reintroduced in 1979
Throughout the EU, the clock has been turned on the last Sunday in March – and back again on the last Sunday in October. Daylight saving time was introduced in Europe in 1973 on the occasion of the oil crisis and with the aim of saving energy. With the time difference, one hour of daylight should be gained for companies and households. France was the first to do so.
Austria only decided to introduce it in 1979 because of administrative problems and because it wanted harmonization of traffic with Switzerland and Germany. These two countries did not introduce daylight saving time until 1980. However, summer time already existed in the Alpine republic during the First World War. In 1916 it applied to the monarchy from May 1st to September 30th, but was then discontinued. A second – unsuccessful – attempt was made in the years 1940 to 1948.
Source: Nachrichten
