[tz] EU Public Consultation summertime arrangements

[Michael H Deckers]

    On 2018-07-11 17:21, Paul Eggert wrote:

>  How about appending a sentence like the following in the next draft?
>
>
> If the EU suggests new terminology, it should bear in mind the 
> confusion that would ensue if the EU gave new meanings to existing 
> names; for example, if a new French UTC +02 zone is called “Central 
> European Time (CET)”, many existing applications that assume that CET 
> is UTC +01 will misbehave.

    Maybe it is more confusing than helpful.

    I do not think that the names of time scale are considered
    to be EU business by anyone in the EU -- the EU follow the
    principle of subsidiarity which defers decisions with local
    scope to the locals.

    Time scale names are currently regulated only by the
    member countries. For instance, countries with the same time
    scale (eg Ireland, Britain, Portugal) have chosen different
    names, and there is no chance that any EU directive will
    "suggest" names.

    The EU questionnaire is only about the application of
    summer time, not about the names for winter and summer
    times. By the way, names in Europe can be a very sensitive
    matter anyway (think of Macedonian Winter Time MWT).

    And the names "Central European Time",.. and acronyms "CET",..
    designate time scales, not zones. It is just (bad) tzdb lingo
    to use "zone" when a time scale is meant.

    So I think the stakes of tzdb in the EU questionnaire
    are restricted to request enough lead time between the
    EU decision on a potential change, including the implementation
    in the law of member countries, and the date of its coming
    into force.

    Michael Deckers.