UK Summer Time Order 1994

Peter Ilieve peter at memex.co.uk
Sun Dec 4 14:46:57 UTC 1994


>So it's time to--
>    * add a couple of "Rule EU" lines to the Europe file

This raises an issue I have meant to mention before. At present the W-Eur,
M-Eur and E-Eur rules only differ in the time of the summer time changes.
The EC Directive is the same for everybody, and specifies a time of
01:00 GMT. Because various EU countries are in 3 different timezones
the changeover times in their local standard times differ. What we need
is something like a `u' or `g' suffix to go with the current s and w,
to indicate a time in UTC/GMT.  Then one EU rule could suit everybody.

>    * document the current EU membership 

The original six: Belguim, France, (West) Germany, Italy, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands.
Plus, from 1 Jan 73: Denmark, Ireland, United Kingdom.
Plus, from 1 Jan 81: Greece.
Plus, from 1 Jan 86: Spain, Portugal.
Plus, from 1 Jan 95: Austria, Finland, Sweden. (Norway negotiated terms for
entry but in a referendum on 28 Nov 94 the people voted No by 52.2% to 47.8%
on a turnout of 88.6%. This was almost the same result as Norway's previous
referendum in 1972, they are the only country to have said No twice.
Referendums in the other three countries voted Yes.)

Next in the queue for membership are probably the Czech Republic, Hungary
and Poland; further back are the Baltic States, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia,
Slovenia, whatever else emerges from the wreckage of Yugoslavia, etc., etc.

>    * document current nonmembers who are using EU rules (if any)

The only one I can speak for is Estonia, which uses EU dates but not at
01:00 GMT, they use midnight GMT. I don't think they know yet what they
will do from 1996 onwards.

>    * document current members who are not using EU rules (if any)

There shouldn't be any of these. 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.


		Peter Ilieve		peter at memex.co.uk



More information about the tz mailing list