This will put an end to an ancient source of confusion.
Are the clocks going forward or back? Does that mean I get an hour of sleep more or less? All these questions are finally set to become a thing of the past, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker confirmed on Wednesday.
In his annual State of the European Union address today, Juncker confirmed that 2019 will see the end of mandatory clock changes for EU countries.
“We all say in soap-box speeches that we want to be big on big things and small on small things,” Juncker said. “But there is no applause when EU law dictates that Europeans have to change the clocks twice a year. The Commission is today proposing to change this. Clock-changing must stop.”
The EU consulted with the public on his matter, and 88% of Irish people purported to be in favour of ending Daylight Savings Time.
From then onwards, each EU country will be free to decide whether or not it wants to abide by Daylight Savings Time.
Ireland South MEP Deirdre Clune is in favour of scrapping the clocks changing entirely.
MEP Clune said: “I have been working with various parties for many years to implement these changes and I am glad to see that they are going one step further today. When asked people in Ireland voted overwhelmingly to stop the clock changes and I think we must all listen to the citizens of Europe on this. Following the recent public consultation on this 80% of European citizens voted to stop the two clock changes each year.”
The public consultation received 4.6 million across the EU, the highest ever recorded for a public consultation.
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