In spite of rumours to the contrary, It seems that Britain will not be changing to Berlin time after all. The notion that the change would boost tourism has been rejected.
On the other hand, Spain is seriously considering changing to GMT and British Summer Time. The country naturally falls into the same zone as the UK as most of its territory is west of the Greenwich Meridian, but it has been on Berlin Time since dictator General Franco forced it into line with the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in 1940.
Berlin Time – officially known as Continental Time – is blamed by many Spanish businessmen for the country’s economic woes and long working hours. Joseph Collin, a Barcelona-based businessman who is an expert on the time-zone controversy, said: ‘Our days are governed by the hours of the sun. Spain gets up at an unnaturally early hour because our clocks are set to Eastern European time.
‘People don’t eat breakfast before they go to work because it’s too early for them to be hungry. We don’t eat lunch until 2pm and we keep working late partly because our bodies are working to the natural time of the sun. The first step towards improvement has to be switching to our natural time zone.’
A recent poll by newspaper 20 Minutos found 43 per cent of Spaniards believed their lives would improve under GMT and BST, while only 12 per cent thought it would have a negative impact.
Portugal, moved to Berlin Time in 1992 but the unpopular change was reversed in 1996 after it led to poorer exam results as children could not get to sleep because of the lighter evenings and were tired at school.There was also an increase in stress levels, insomnia and consumption of sleeping pills. More road accidents occurred during the darker winter mornings and energy bills rose.
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