Alex Trelinski
WITH Spring officially arriving a week ago, there are lighter evenings to look forward to- boosted by the clocks going forward an hour this Sunday at 2am.
The current process sees all of Europe making the change on the last weekend of March.
The concept was devised by George Vincent Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist in 1895, and was first used by Germany and Austria during the First World War to save on coal usage.
READ MORE:
After summer, the clocks will go back again — but that won’t happen until the last weekend of October.
If you’re unsure as to which way the clocks go during which season, an easy way to remember is that you ‘spring forward and fall back’.
The change keeps Spain in the same time zone as Poland, Serbia and Hungary all nations whose capitals are more than 2,000 kilometres to the east, but an hour ahead of the UK which shares a similar longitude.
For years now there has been a discussion in Spain about moving the clocks back permanently, ending a Franco-era legacy from 1940 in an attempt to align the nation with Nazi Germany.
The move meant that Spain moved out of kilter with neighbours Portugal, as well the UK and Ireland.
A parliamentary commission in 2013 recommended Spain return to GMT but nothing has happened since.
In 2019 the EU parliament voted to abolish the bi-annual changing of the clocks giving member states the right to choose their time zone, but that was not a binding vote on the bloc.
Four years later, the parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee chose to delay any annual time changes so that countries would have more time to decide.
So, for the time being, the status quo remains.
