87% Finns for scrapping daylight-saving time

The majority of Finns would like to forgo with the daylight-saving time practice, finds a survey commissioned by the government, said an official press release.

The findings came from the findings of a Gallup poll commissioned by the Ministry of Transport and Communications from Kantar TNS Oy and an online survey organised using the Otakantaa forum. Both data collection methods produced highly similar results.

A total of 1,087 people responded to the Gallup polls carried out by Kantar TNS. The margin of error in the findings was three percentage points in each direction. The respondents were Finns aged 15 to 74.

The Otakantaa survey elicited a lot of automated responses. Their share has been taken into account in the examination of the results of the survey.

In total, the Otakantaa survey attracted 677,000 responses and 359,000 open answers. The Otakantaa survey launched on 26 September was open till 12 October.

The winter time was favoured by around 238,000 responses and the summer time by around 216,000 responses. Fifty-two per cent responses favoured the winter time and 48 per cent the summer time.

The respondents were requested to state their opinions on the time zones. Of the respondents, 49 per cent considered it important or somewhat important that the time difference between Finland and the Scandinavia or the Central Europe should not be greater than the current one hour. Only 13 per cent of the respondents somewhat or fully disagreed with this statement.

A total of 360,000 open answers were given, of which 220,000 are apparently by response bots. There were around 140,000 open answers that must be analysed.

Based on the findings of the Gallup poll, the majority of Finns were in favour of scrapping the daylight-saving time practice and transit permanently to the current summer or winter time. Nearly nine of every 10 respondents, or 87 per cent of the survey participants, shared this view. Only six per cent were against the change.

The vast majority of all population groups included in the survey were in favour of abolishing the daylight-saving time practice. Views on the matter were highly similar, regardless of the person considering the issue.

If making a permanent transition to either current summer or winter time were presented as the alternatives, winter time was also slightly more popular in the Gallup poll.

Nearly one out of two, or 47 per cent, of the research participants considered permanent winter time to be the better alternative. By contrast, two fifths, or 39 per cent, would prefer turning their clocks permanently to the current summer time. Fourteen per cent of the respondents did not express any opinion in favour of either winter or summer time.

The processing of the commission’s proposal will be continued in the European Commission and the European Parliament. The issue will be discussed at the Working Party on Land Transport and an informal meeting of transport ministers. Finland cannot make a decision on scrapping daylight saving time at the national level; instead, a decision on the matter must be made in the EU.