[tz] BBC: Clock changes: EU backs ending daylight saving

[Philip Paeps]

On 2018-08-31 16:19:32 (+0100), John Wilcock wrote:
> Le 31/08/2018 à 16:05, Philip Paeps a écrit :
>> On 2018-08-31 13:33:42 (+0100), Marshall Eubanks wrote:
>>> In a consultation paper it said one option would be to let each 
>>> member
>>> state decide whether to go for permanent summer or winter time. That
>>> would be "a sovereign decision of each member state", Commission
>>> spokesman Alexander Winterstein explained on Friday.
>>
>> That'll go well ...
>
> Assuming that was intended ironically, why? Countries realise that 
> they need to balance convenience for their citizens against the 
> importance of coordinating time with their trading partners.

Making it a purely domestic matter could open the door to countries 
potentially "experimenting" with time zones over a period of years.  
While they would presumably coordinate with their trading partners, they 
have less of an incentive to announce any changes to the wider world in 
sufficient time for software to catch up.

> I can't see France or any of the Benelux countries agreeing to 
> permanent UTC+2 (which would be around two hours ahead of local solar 
> time), nor can I see Germany or Italy deciding to be on a different 
> time zone to France and Benelux. So the heart of Europe will IMO stay 
> on UTC+1. Spain might decide to do the geographically logical thing 
> and join Portugal on UTC+0, but I think it is more likely to stay on 
> UTC+1 too. Likewise, various eastern European countries "ought" to 
> change to UTC+2, but would almost certainly make the decision as a 
> bloc rather than piecemeal. And the Nordic countries, which share 
> latitude-related issues, would be highly likely to make a joint 
> decision too.

I'm not too worried about countries moving their standard time relative 
to each other.  But I could easily imagine some countries deciding to 
try out not changing back to standard time one winter and then then 
deciding the next winter that maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all 
and reintroducing standard time.

Philip

-- 
Philip Paeps
Senior Reality Engineer
Ministry of Information