[tz] EU Public Consultation on summertime arrangements

Brian Inglis Brian.Inglis at SystematicSw.ab.ca
Tue Jul 10 22:05:30 UTC 2018


On 2018-07-10 06:32, John Wilcock wrote:
>> "TZDB natural default" is likely to confuse them. Phrase things without
>> using TZDB; for example:
>>
>> "all year, many people would naturally call France's new time zone "Eastern
>> European Time (EET)" due to the long association ..."
> 
> I disagree - if they were aware that France was being referred to, *people* (at
> least those people with the slightest awareness of European geography) would not
> naturally do this, given that France is quite clearly not in the eastern part of
> Europe! Non-updated computer systems, on the other hand, might well associate
> UTC+02 with EET by default.

Most people are probably not that aware of European geography, nor care what
English speakers call European time zones informally; the situation is similar
for Australia, North America, Russia. Abbreviations are not canonical, so don't
have to make sense, but must be widely used in English language sources, or
existing WET/CET/EET or recent practice GMT/+01/+02 are likely to be used.

>> For best results, the document should also keep track of changes to
>> civil time in EEA countries, membership candidates, potential
>> candidates, Schengen area, and other countries not in the EU that
>> decide to make a related change. This document would be purely
>> informative, with no authority behind it.
> 
> I'd change "EEA" to "EEA/EFTA" so as to include Switzerland.
> 
> The terms used by the EU are "candidate countries" (not "membership candidates")
> and "potential candidates".

Those terms are used in the EU's list of EU countries.

> I don't see the relevance of "Schengen area" - all current and potential
> Schengen area countries are either EU or EEA/EFTA members.

The Schengen Area also includes non-EU/EEA/EFTA countries Monaco, San Marino,
and the Vatican, which have not signed the Schengen agreement, but have no
borders, so are de facto included.

> And of course the future status of the UK with regard to all of these entities
> is unknown at present, though in all eventualities it will at least be covered
> by "other countries not in the EU" - unless it backs out of Brexit at the last
> minute, in which case it would remain a member state :-)

Who knows?

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada


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