[tz] EU Public Consultation on summertime arrangements

[John Wilcock]

>> Surely tz could/would simply define new Western, Central and Eastern European
>> Standard Time zones and assign the relevant locations to them as from the
>> transition date, rather than "model" them to existing zones? Or are you
>> suggesting that systems that aren't properly updated would present misleading
>> names to users?
> 
> WET, CET, EET, and related summer time zones have defined meanings, and are also
> used by other non-EU countries, who may continue to observe DST or not. It would
> make no sense to change names which are understood, to have different meanings,
> depending on whether a country had EU membership.

Ultimately, official and/or public usage will determine the names that 
are actually used -- and presumably the tz database will track that 
actual usage.

IMO, if the EU decides to mandate that its member states must cease to 
observe summer time, and the EU or the member states further decide (as 
would seem quite likely) to keep using WET/CET/EET as time zone 
abbreviations then, given the importance of the EU within the wider 
European region, any non-EU countries using one of the current 
WET/CET/EET will have little choice but to align with the changes or 
find a new name for their time zone.

-- 
John