Three quarters want the end of the time change

“Who turned the clock, is it really that late already?” When a new working week begins on Monday and the alarm clock rings in the morning, many more people than usual are likely to ask themselves this question. Because, like every year, on the last Sunday in March at two o’clock in the morning, the hands are turned forward one hour, the Summertime begins. This messes up the sleep rhythm for many people.

In a survey published by the health insurance company on Thursday DAC 85 percent of those surveyed stated that they felt “tired or listless” after the changeover to daylight saving time. 63 percent even spoke of having “difficulty falling asleep or insomnia”. As the representative survey conducted by Forsa shows, the consequences can be long-lasting and serious: the symptoms lasted a week for almost half of those surveyed, and even a month for a quarter. And every fourth person states that they have already had health problems as a result of the clock change.

So it doesn’t come as a surprise that the time change not very popular. In the DAK survey, a good three quarters of those surveyed wanted it to be abolished. A narrow majority, supported above all by those in employment, spoke out in favor of maintaining summer time permanently so that it stays light longer after work.

Nowhere as controversial as in Germany

Actually, that had EU This is also already planned: In September 2018, the Commission proposed ending the seasonal time changes after more than 84 percent voted for their abolition in an online survey of 4.6 million EU citizens. In March 2019, the EU Parliament also followed this assessment. The vote has not yet been implemented because the EU governments in the European Council have not yet been able to agree on a common approach. The aim is to prevent a patchwork quilt of different time zones from emerging in Europe, which could lead to difficulties in cross-border traffic and business.

This could also be due to the fact that nowhere else does the time change meet with as much rejection as in this country. As a new Yougov survey shows, opinion in Europe is not uniform. Like the DAK, the opinion research institute determined a rejection rate of 75 percent for Germany. Citizens in Sweden (58 percent), Denmark (56 percent) and France (49 percent) shared this attitude at some distance. In Great Britain (56 percent), Spain (46 percent) and Italy (45 percent), on the other hand, the majority of citizens were in favor of keeping the time change.

In Germany, the conversion was initially introduced temporarily during the time of the two world wars from 1916 to 1919 and from 1940 to 1949. The aim was to save energy – a motive that also became important after the oil crisis in 1978 and led to the reintroduction of summer time in 1980, which has been in effect throughout the EU since 1996. Whether and to what extent these savings are still being achieved today is a matter of debate among experts.