[tz] about DST in Europe

[Clive D.W. Feather]

David Carrara said:
> Good day,
> i'm writting to you about the file "europe" taken from tzdata-latest.tar.gz
> 
> 
> I read in it :
> «
> # There shouldn't be any [current members who are not using EU rules].
> # A Directive has the force of law, member states are obliged to enact
> # national law to implement it. The only contentious issue was the
> # different end date for the UK and Ireland, and this was always allowed
> # in the Directive.
>  »
> 
> 
> But i think this is small imprecision.
> in our European official documents there is a directive saying WHEN to
> change
> but i've never seen any directive saying we had to change (each country is
> free).

Sorry, but you're wrong. Article 2 requires the "summer-time period" to
begin on a certain date-time, and Article 1 defines the "summer-time
period" as putting the clocks forward by 60 minutes. Therefore every Member
State must put its clocks forward and back. (Except for the overseas
territories exempted in Article 6.)

> Furthermore, the tzdata file says « only contentious issue was the
> different end date for the UK and Ireland, and this was always allowed in
> the Directive. »
> But when I read the directive I see no exception about them.

The current Directive doesn't have an exemption, but earlier ones did. See
Article 3.2 of Directive 94/21/EC:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31994L0021:EN:HTML

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Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
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