EU rethinks clock change: 93% of Spaniards want year-round summer

Foreign affairs minister Josep Borrell has speculated this could mean Spain being 'in a different time zone' more 'in keeping with its geographical location'.

But he says nothing is set in stone – in fact, the EU-28 is not able to agree a common policy for the bloc, since daylight saving measures are within the jurisdiction of national governments.

“I'm sure the people in Lapland won't have the same views as those in Portugal, for example,” admits Borrell.

“But then, I'm not an expert in the subject.”

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker proposes ending clock changes altogether, although it is not clear as yet whether this would lead to EU nations being permanently on what is now 'winter' time or 'summer' time.

It looks more likely Europe would stay in its respective 'summer' time slots, given that over a million respondents said they wanted to keep it that way.

This is nearly a quarter of the 4.6 million who replied to the survey, which included spaces for qualitative information and personal views.

Although the survey is not binding, the Commission says the results are so overwhelmingly biased in one direction that they 'cannot ignore' it.

Already, European Parliament referred in February to scientific studies which have shown that changing the clocks can have negative effects on health.

The UK has already discussed possibly eliminating the October clock change and staying on British Summer Time (BST) all year, given that it gets dark in England and Wales by between 15.30 and 16.00 in midwinter – but the debate fell down because children in Scotland, which has fewer daylight hours than the southern part of the UK in winter, would be walking to school in the dark.

MEPs, responding to a petition from Finland – which mentioned health issues and the fact that nowadays, changing the clocks does not contribute towards saving energy – cast a non-binding vote earlier this year in which 384 of them were in favour of keeping the same time all year, 153 wanted to continue with the twice-yearly changes, and 12 abstained.

Spain was a major participant in the survey and Britain was one of the lowest, with Germany saw the highest participation overall.

In a country which, on CEST, enjoys daylight seven months of the year up to nearly 23.00 but is in the dark before 17.00 in winter, Germans' high participation was to be expected.

Europe currently has three time zones, not all of which correspond with their countries' geographical locations – and two countries, Spain and Portugal, have two time zones.

Despite the Meridian Line running through mainland Spain's easternmost point and much of France, plus all of Belgium and The Netherlands, being to the west of it, these countries are on Central European Time (CET) and CEST in summer.

However, the Canary Islands and Portugal are on GMT, or BST.