After a public consultation in summer 2018, the European Commission had recommended, in September, to scrap the time changes this year. However, Member States as well as the European Parliament judged the timeframe excessively short.
In the text approved on Monday, the parliamentarians also called on EU countries to coordinate with one another before making any changes.
The switch to daylight saving time and back to normal time is regulated by a 2001 European directive. All European States change their times in the last weekend of March and the last weekend of October. However, the introduction and/or reintroduction of daylight saving time dates back to 1977 and is motivated by the aim of saving on energy, even thoughts its effectiveness in this regard is contested.
Once Monday’s resolution is approved by the full European Parliament, it will form the parliamentarians’ position for negotiations with the European Council of Ministers.
Maria Novak
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