Filenews 6 October 2021 - by Despina Psilou
The abolition of the seasonal changes of the time that the European Union was seeking to implement from this year has now been put on ice. Thus, on October 31, the clocks will move an hour backwards, while the possible abolition will be discussed again after years. Legal obstacles, as well as the disagreements of the Member States as to their seasonal time of preference, seem to have stopped the process.
In addition, the European Union has issued a communication that seasonal changes between winter and summer time will continue for the five-year period 2022 to 2026, relieving countries of the dilemma of choosing one of the two. A similar ministerial decree for the period 2022 to 2026 was issued by Cyprus.
As a minister of the Ministry of Energy told "F", the abolition of seasonal changes of the time is no longer discussed. The draft European directive, which has been on the table in 2018, provided that countries would choose within a few months the time they would maintain on a permanent basis.
In 2019, the European Parliament adopted the proposal to stop the practice of clock changes. In fact, at that time the vast majority of Members voted in favour. However, the process did not seem so simple. Legal obstacles were presented and at the same time there were no clear benefits in the impact report from this change. After all, the disagreements between the states for the time being that would prevail were such as to hamper the selection process.
Thus, based on the directive in force in the EU, the period of change (March and October) of the seasonal time for the five-year period 2022 to 2026 was announced. In other words, the current time change regime remains.
However, when Cyprus considered the possibility of a seasonal time, based on the first discussions that had taken place between ministries and stakeholders, it became clear that views tended towards the maintenance of summer time. This position was also supported by 70% of the participants. Any objections expressed then by the remaining 30%, compared to the summer, concerned the months of November, December and January because dawn would occur very late in the morning, around 8:30 to 9:00am.
