The origin of the differentiated winter/summer hour (also called Daylight Saving Time) is not well known, several explanations are given for it, without one actually emerging as the origin.
However, it was promoted during the first oil shock in 1973–1974 as a way to save energy consumption, it now seems that the expected advantages have not been realized. Indeed, no measurable effect has been demonstrated. Conversely, some economic sectors have benefited from the opportunities offered by this hour switch, while some citizens have suffered from it. The global effect can thus be damaging, but once again without actual evidence of that.
Since 2019, Europe has decided to abolish this hour switch but has not decided which of the two hour-schemes must be retained. As often happens in such circumstances, many people have used arguments and claimed their opinion for one or the other, without a clear or decisive element enabling the choice of either. Just a thick, dense smokescreen.
In the meantime, five years have passed, and nothing concrete has happened. A lot of discussions, a lot of noise, a huge amount of entropy (useless energy), and no decision… all while we are just speaking of a difference of one hour that we still experience twice each year.
Instead of whining about this nearly ridiculous situation, I would like to propose a solution. I am doing this because, from my point of view, criticism is important but only has value when accompanied by a proposition to solve the issue.
Let us examine what could be a solution based on actual figures. First, the continental European Union extends from Cabo da Roca (Portugal, at a longitude of 9°30′ W) at its extreme west, to near Sulina (Romania, at a longitude of 30°29′ E) at its extreme east, covering a span of nearly 40° in longitude (latitude does not play any role in time zones definition). Since 360° corresponds to a day (24 hours), 40° equals 2 hours and 40 minutes. This means that a common, unique hour will never really suit everyone.
Geographically, the center of the continental European Union lies at 9,93° E. However, this does not account for population distribution. If we weight the geographical points of the continental European Union by the population living at each location, the center would approximately lie at 8° E (the longitude of, for example, Freiburg, Germany).
This is an approximation. A precise calculation would require access to population databases for every inhabited location. I do not think this is feasible as of today. If we consider only the ten most populous cities in each country, the center of the continental European Union lies at 8,5° E, thus not far from the approximation for the entire continental population.
Considering all these figures, we can say that the center of the continental European Union, and probably the whole European Union, lies somewhere around 8° E. Since 360° corresponds to 24 hours, 8° equals 32 minutes (9° equals 36 minutes).
This means that if we were to adopt a common hour that is in the middle of the winter and summer hour schemes, thus solely 30 minutes from each, we would be nearly at the population-centric hour of the entire European Union. Could this be a good compromise ?
In any case, it could not perturb anyone significantly at any time since a difference of 30 minutes is nearly negligible. Furthermore, if neither winter nor summer time scheme offers a demonstrable advantage, the midpoint between them could be a fair trade-off. Nobody loses anything, and everyone gains a unified time scheme, which has been the goal for already five years.
Some might argue that a time shift from UTC that is not an exact number of hours (e.g., hh:30) is unusual or impractical. However, this is not true. Below a list of countries with non-integer time shifts from Greenwich:
- India: GMT+05:30
- Sri Lanka: GMT+05:30
- Nepal: GMT+05:45
- Myanmar: GMT+06:30
- Cocos Islands (Australia): GMT+06:30
- Afghanistan: GMT+04:30
- Iran: GMT+03:30 (and GMT+04:30 in summer, where applicable)
- Australia (by region):
- GMT+09:30: Northern Territory and part of South Australia
- GMT+08:45: Esperance Island Region
- Canada (Newfoundland and Labrador): GMT-03:30
- New Zealand (Chatham Islands): GMT+12:45
Non-integer time shifts apply to a total population of roughly 1,7 billion people, more than three times the population of the European Union and around 21% of the global population. Thus, it is far from negligible and surely not ridiculous.
Even if some consider it ridiculous, I will say that human needs should always take precedence over theoretical or other considerations.
Setting the common European time at the midpoint between winter and summer times, at GMT+01:30, would be representative of the geographically population-weighted center of the European Union and would only cause a small, one-time adjustment.