The interminable debate over Europe’s ‘hour change’ (from summer to winter time) continues – with the majority of Portuguese now saying they agree with the rest of Europe: it shouldn’t happen.
But ‘one man at the Observatory of Astronomy’ doesn’t agree (click here) – and as far as the country’s political parties have intimated, they’re siding with him.
Earlier this month, prime minister António Costa said on air that Portugal would not be scrapping the hour change, as it would be ‘going against science’.
Thus, as we approach yet another moment when dark evenings hurtle towards us (the next hour change comes at the end of the month) the way ahead looks distinctly murky.
An opinion poll commissioned by tabloid Correio da Manhã – which has been widely shared across all media – shows that 60.7% of people “defend maintenance of the same time throughout the year”.
And the paper recalls that of the 4.6 million people who responded to the EU’s questionnaire on the subject, 84%thought exactly the same way.
Breaking the country down into areas, the poll shows that people in the north and around Lisbon are most pro- scrapping the hour change.
Southern areas are more ambivalent, with only 50.3% supporting no hour changes, and 43.7% actually saying they would prefer to see things staying the way they are.
Clarity should come in April next year, when the European parliament will take a vote.
It will then be up to the European Council to “homologate the decision”, say reports – though Portuguese MPs here have already said they “don’t like the idea” of being ‘pushed around’ by big brother Brussels…
