84% Europeans for Finland´s plea to ban clock change

Europeans overwhelmingly want to abolish daylight saving time, according to preliminary results published Friday from a public consultation.

The European Commission said that its consultation, which ran from July 4 to Aug. 16, 2018, received 4.6 million responses from all 28 member states of the European Union, and 84 percent of respondents are in favor of putting an end to the bi-annual clock change.

Under rules since 1996, Europeans move clocks forward an hour on the last Sunday in March and back an hour on the final Sunday in October.

The summer-winter time change was introduced because it was believed that the practice could help save energy by taking advantage of daylight hours during the warmer season.

But 76 percent of the respondents consider that changing the clock twice a year is a "very negative" or "negative" experience, according to the preliminary results, the European Commission said.

European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc said: "Millions of Europeans used our public consultation to make their voices heard. The message is very clear: 84% of them do not want the clocks to change anymore. We will now act accordingly and prepare a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and the Council, who will then decide together."

The European Commission in July began soliciting opinions on daylight saving time, contemplating whether to scrap the biannual daylight saving rules.

The public consultation comes after a number of requests from citizens, the European Parliament, and certain EU Member States.

For years, clocks in the European Union has been put forward by an hour between March and October. But opposition to the practice has been gaining momentum, with the European Parliament in February called on the Commission to conduct a thorough assessment and, if necessary, to table a proposal to revise it.

Finland has asked that the bi-annual time switch be abandoned and Lithuania has called for a review of the current system in order to take into account regional and geographical differences.

Many studies in terms of the current time arrangements remain inconclusive, the European Commission said, while "chronobiologic research findings suggest that the effect on the human biorhythm may be more severe than previously thought".

Earlier, in December 2017 Finland raised the issue of the proposed ban on changing clocks for the summer time (daylight saving time) during the policy debate at the EU Telecommunications Council and the EU Transport Council.