For years billions of people have set their clocks forward or back an hour, although there are pockets of resistance.
– “According to a March 2022 CBS News poll, 46% of Americans favored permanent daylight saving time, while 33% favored permanent winter time. The remaining 21% simply accept the status quo.”
– “Exceptions to this approved rule include residents of Hawaii and most of Arizona, where standard time is permanent throughout the year.”
Daylight saving time (in English: Daylight Saving Time or DST) is the time change that a state chooses to adopt for a certain period of the year. This change is generally one hour ahead of solar time.
In Greece, we set the clock back one hour in October and one hour forward in March, on the last Sunday of each month. This practice started for our country in 1975.
In 1784, Benjamin Franklin in an article in a French newspaper suggested waking up an hour earlier. Research done mainly in the USA confirmed Benjamin Franklin's theory and showed that a large percentage of energy is saved this way.
The first test in Greece took place in 1932, without success. The rural population of Greece was not so happy with the changes caused by the time change.
"The time change must be abolished", said the then head of the Commission Jean-Claude Juncker in 2018, after a relevant online survey across the EU. 84% of those who took part agreed with the end of this practice.
The European Parliament voted in March 2019 to abolish the time change from 2021.
So 2023 and the time change continues to exist. It seems that the EU's decision on the change is not expected soon.
The proposal of the E.E. was that the time change had to stop on the last Sunday of March 2021 for countries that wanted to keep daylight saving time permanently. Accordingly, for member states that wanted winter time, the change had to take place on the last Sunday of October 2021.
Greece and the rest of the EU countries respectively have not taken final decisions, due to important events such as Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. Preferences for winter or summer time vary by country, as reflected in polls, with a trend towards permanent daylight saving time.
Examples include:
| Winter | Summer | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Φινλανδία | 52% | 48% | |
| France | 37% | 59% | |
| Ireland | 19% | 81% | |
| Sweden | 29% | 37% | |
| Poland | 26% | 74% | |
| Britain | 22% | 59% | |
| Bulgaria | 48% | 32% | |
| Belgium | 50% | 45% | |
| Netherlands | 38% | 44% | |
| Spain | 14% | 65% | |
| Germany | 42% | 51% | |
| Italy | 31% | 69% |
I will simply quote what many, like me, who are related to IT noted on the EU site.
To change once and for all the time and its alternate changes, Very nice, right and proper!
BUT what will be done with outdated systems in critical infrastructures that will not be aware of this change, which do not accept updates and service packs.
What will happen to devices/active network equipment etc. that are now eol/eos?
Is there a care for all this, is there any supervision, recording, some guideline perhaps for the smooth transition and consolidation of the change or do we just go for the global permanent change and our help?