[tz] [DRAFT] EU-related changes likely – here’s a heads-up

[Joseph Myers]

On Sat, 15 Sep 2018, Paul Eggert wrote:

> +    * Use numeric offsets for abbreviations in the new zones, as it is
> +      too early to know what English-language abbreviations (if any)
> +      will be used.  For example, if Spain stays at +02 all year, it's
> +      not clear whether people will call its time "Eastern European
> +      Time" (a geographic misnomer) or some other name.  Although

The press Q&A indicates the Commission interprets it as moving one 
timezone to the east ("Currently there are three standard time zones in 
the EU: Western European Time (Ireland, Portugal, UK), Central European 
Time (17 Member States) and Eastern European Time (Bulgaria, Cyprus, 
Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania). Member States 
choosing to keep permanent summertime will automatically change to the 
next time zone (standard time + 1 hour)."), though of course that doesn't 
say what people will actually call it (or what the Commission thinks the 
name for UTC+3 should be).

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-18-5641_en.htm

(Presumably people in Europe will, having to deal with multiple timezones 
routinely, find they do in fact need to have names / abbreviations for the 
timezones - and will need to have them in English even if English ceases 
to be an official EU language - so the issue of invention should not arise 
as it does in places that don't routinely need to talk about multiple 
timezones in English.)

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
jsm at polyomino.org.uk