To clarify, the European Commission had a public consultation on DST[1]. The response was strongly in favour of ending the clock changes, and furthermore favoured permanent DST. The EC has called on member states to come up with an appropriate way of accommodating the public’s preference, telling them to coordinate so that time differences across borders are kept to a sensible minimum.
No decision has been made yet to either abolish DST, or move the clock forward one hour permanently, and it might not happen at all. The member states are supposed to reply before next summer, so that the switch to DST next spring could be the last time changing clocks in Europe.
>To clarify, the European Commission had a public consultation on DST
A public consultation, conducted online, to which 4 million people (less that 1% of the population of Europe) answered. 3 million of those were from Germany.
I'm living in the EU. I go online and read various news items every day.
I'm baffled about the fact I somehow managed to miss that there was an official poll / call for direct citizen feedback on such a topic I personally care about.
I might have bit a bit distracted ... or the whole poll might not have been conducted particularly well.
Overrepresentation of a particular country might be a tell tale sign of local media coverage that was effectively done only in one country.
It looked like it was about to happen now or in 6 months (last switch) but Austria has asked for a delay to consider how it should implement it and Belgium and the Netherlands are following with that.
So basically I have now lost all hope that we are ever going to drop the switch in this century.
So much for public consultation and Europe being an oppressive administration force (some say it was made on purpose to highlight individual states unwillingness to cooperate).
No decision has been made yet to either abolish DST, or move the clock forward one hour permanently, and it might not happen at all. The member states are supposed to reply before next summer, so that the switch to DST next spring could be the last time changing clocks in Europe.
[1]http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-5302_en.htm