Daylight Saving Time harshly criticized at European Parliament

The European Parliament, meeting for a plenary session in Strasbourg, fiercely criticized the European Commission and the European Council during a Thursday debate for refusing to take into consideration the demands of citizens to do away with "daylight saving time" changes in the spring and autumn.

It was with a rare unanimity that the Members of European Parliament (MEPs) on Thursday morning denounced the change for daylight saving time which suffers heavy criticism in the Strasbourg hemicycle every year, as it does in public opinion on the European continent.

The system, which consists in adjusting the official time by adding an hour to the time zone for a period stretching from the spring until the beginning of autumn, was introduced in Europe at the end of the 1970s in the wake of oil crises and with the objective to confront the consequences of economic hardship.

It was then regularized throughout the European Union (EU) in 1998 so that the legal hour would be the same for all member states.

Since Russia ceased using what is also called "Double Summertime" in 2011, numerous voices have been raised in the EU to call into question a system deemed counterproductive in economic terms and harmful in terms of health.

China had, itself, already gotten rid of the mechanism in 1992. Other than Europe, the United States, Canada, Mexico and certain European countries who are not members of the EU, the majority of the world population maintains a constant legal time throughout the year, which serves as an argument used frequently by the MEPs in order to denounce the "arrogance and ignorance" of the Commission on this issue.

The European Commissioner of Transport, Violeta Bulc, was in fact interrogated directly by the parliamentarians who were present in the hemicycle Thursday morning. "The attitude of the Commission is completely unacceptable. This now makes for more than ten years that it is unreceptive to the concerns of the citizens! We are dreaming!" exclaimed the representative of the European People's Party (EPP/Right).

The same exasperation showed in the ranks of the center parties and leftist parties, such as the European Greens. "A measure from a former century," a device which "puts in danger the health of the people as of animals in upsetting the circadian rhythm," a system "inefficient, even counterproductive, in terms of energy savings": such were the arguments produced by the MEPs in order to demand the end of "Double Summertime."

"There is no longer any valid scientific reason to keep it," affirmed the German MEP for the Greens, Michael Cramer. "Numerous studies demonstrate that in fact this system has a negative effect on the energy domain. At the same time, its health consequences are very serious and clearly established," he added.

At the end of the debate, Commissioner Violeta Bulc dodged the issue by saying: "There are not substantial arguments to sway the balance. The member states are split. It is only in the case of new evidence that we would be brought to reconsider our position." Endit