Europe’s clocks will be shifting back to winter time this weekend, to be followed a week later by those in North America, despite a decision several years ago to end the twice-a-year switching. It seems there’s just no time for final decisions.
The European Parliament acted in 2019, after surveys showed overwhelming popular support across the continent for ending time-switching; the vote in Parliament was better than two-to-one for the measure, and a deadline of 2021 was chosen for the last switch.
However, the initial measure left it up to the individual countries to choose whether to observe permanent winter time or permanent summer time. It was immediately obvious that no good would come of a continent checkerboarded with time changes at borders, but few if any of the EU members have actually made decisions on their preference—the Covid pandemic pushed the issue way down the agendas, and 2021 passed by. This year, with bigger issues of war, inflation, shortages…it seems as if there’s just no time to sort out the clock.
