European MPs this week voted in favour of abolishing seasonal time changes during a vote in Strasbourg.


The legislation, backed by 410 MEPS while 192 voted against, will allow countries to make their final date changes in 2021, either in March or October, depending on whether they intend to keep winter or summer time. To date, the only countries to oppose the move are Portugal, Greece and the United Kingdom.


According to the proposal, EU countries that decide to keep their summer time should make their final clock change on the last Sunday in March 2021. Those that prefer to keep their standard (winter) time, can adjust their clocks for the final time on the last Sunday in October 2021, says the draft law.


Originally, Brussels had wanted the proposal to come into force this year, but MEPs voted to postpone the date from 2019 to 2021.
MEPs also said after the vote that they want EU countries and the Commission to coordinate the decisions to ensure that the application of summer time in some countries and winter time in others does not disrupt the internal market.


Portugal, and all other EU member states, will have to inform Brussels by April next year as to which time zone they will be adopting in 2021.


In the meantime, if the Commission finds that the foreseen time arrangements could significantly, and permanently, hamper the proper functioning of the single market, it may submit a proposal to postpone the date of application of the directive by a maximum of 12 months into 2022.


Responding to citizens’ initiatives, in February 2018, the European Parliament called on the European Commission to assess time changes in the EU.


Following the assessment, which received 4.6 million responses, of which 84 percent were in favour of ending the clock changes, the Commission tabled the proposal, which will now need to be agreed upon between the Parliament and EU ministers.


The EU first unified the summer time arrangements in 1980, in order to ensure a harmonised approach to time switching within the single market, as until then, national summer time practices and schedules were diverging. The current summer time arrangements directive requires EU countries to switch to summer time on the last Sunday of March and back to standard time on the last Sunday of October.


Portuguese MEP Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar has however called for further studies into the proposal to abolish time changes.
She questioned the legitimacy of the assessment conducted by the EU in 2018, saying that while it did receive 4.6 million responses, more than half (around 3 million) who took part were based in Germany.


The Social Democrat MEP added that the only assessment that effectively took place was a survey, which cannot be compared to a full study on the matter.


“This is completely unbalanced and we cannot accept this low representation of 500 million Europeans”, argued Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar.


In Portugal, 34,000 people took part in the survey, with 79 percent saying they were against the twice-a-year clock change.
Speaking late last year over the proposed changes, Prime Minister António Costa said: “I think that the best and only criteria [on which to base a decision] is that of science, and what has been expressed so far by the competent entity, which is the Astronomical Observatory of Lisbon, is the understanding that in Portugal we must maintain this bi-yearly regime, with a summer time and a winter time”.


He then added: “I see no reason to contradict science and do something discretionary”.


In the 44-page report delivered in August by the Lisbon Astronomical Observatory, which was based on different scientific papers, it was concluded that the current routine should be maintained.

“A winter and summer timetable is beneficial for most people”, the report said.


However, it did note that the European Union and the Portuguese State should support and approve an improvement to the current summer-time regime, by changing its end to the last Sunday in September instead of October.


The European Parliament first started discussing a possible end to changing clocks backwards and forwards in early February this year.
The practice has been in force since 30 April 1916 and has been coordinated by the European Union since 1996. Countries such as Russia, Turkey and Iceland have already abolished this practice.