EU backs ending daylight saving time

The European Union yesterday said it will recommend member countries abolish the twice-yearly clock change following an unprecedented citizen appeal that drew immediate support from Germany, the bloc's biggest economy.

The European Commission, the executive of the 28-nation bloc, said most EU citizens answering an online survey complained that the time change was disruptive, caused sleep problems, harmed their health and increased road accidents.

"Millions of Europeans used our public consultation to make their voices heard," Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc said as the executive commission pledged to act on the findings.

"The message is very clear: 84 percent of them do not want the clocks to change anymore," Bulc said at the commission's annual retreat to a lake side hotel in Genval, Belgium.

She told reporters the commission is now preparing a proposal to send to the European Parliament and the 28 member countries in the following weeks, one she said could be enacted by 2020 or 2021.

According to preliminary results, some 4.6 million European citizens responded to the online poll -- the biggest in EU history, Bulc said -- on whether they wanted the change.

Since 1996, all Europeans have been advancing their clock by one hour on the last Sunday of March and putting it back one hour on the last Sunday of October.

Under the proposal still being fine tuned, Bulc said it will be up to each individual member state to decide whether they follow winter time or summer time.

Many European countries began changing the clock seasonally in World War I on the premise it saved energy, with the practice reinforced during World War II and during the energy crisis in the 1970s. Residents of North America follow the same ritual.

But Bulc said there is "no obvious evidence" of energy savings, particularly in a modern economy switching to cleaner forms of energy.