Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-12-Speech-2-080"
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"en.20001212.5.2-080"2
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"Do we really have to carry on with the change to summer time? It was brought in at the time of the oil crises, to save energy and has been extended to 2001?
First we should recognise that the advantages and value of the arrangement have largely vanished: the energy saving it was supposed to produce is completely unproven and merely symbolic.
On the contrary, in addition to atmospheric pollution problems, the profound disturbance to human beings, especially children, of this double time-change, taking place in March and then in October, is clearly established and greatly resented by the people, many of whom are calling for the cancellation of this arrangement which upsets the rhythms of life.
The report financed by the Commission to justify its proposal merely notes the inadequacy of the consistent data available and the contradictory nature of existing studies: so it does not provide any relevant grounds for maintaining the time change system.
Now, the Commission proposes to make the change to summer time, and then back to winter time, permanent with no limit date. It means to impose this on the Member States without the option of exemption, and on the candidate countries, without taking account of their specific geographic position. Nothing, not even time, must escape its standardising will! It must be the same time in Brest as in Brest-Litovsk. The advantages of time zones cannot possibly outweigh the benefits of standardisation! Long live the single federal time!
Yet the choice of time applicable in each of the Member States is always a purely national decision, by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity. The national governments must not give up that right. They must continue to be concerned about representing the will of the people who have elected them.
Instead of the one proposed by the Commission, the best solution would undoubtedly be to give up the summer time arrangement and keep GMT + 1Â hour for the whole year, at least as far as France is concerned.
From this angle, I am glad two amendments were adopted by Parliament, one rejecting the Commission’s plan to apply the summer time arrangement for an indefinite period, and the other allowing the Member States, like the European institutions, to retain the option of reviewing this arrangement."@en1
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