More than 80% EU Citizens Feel Time's up for Changing Clocks

DW - A European Union online survey has concluded that a vast majority of the bloc's citizens are against switching between summer and winter time. All signs point towards the EU now putting a stop to changing the clocks.

More than 80 percent of respondents to the largest online survey in EU history are in favor of abolishing changing the clocks in summer and winter, EU sources reported Wednesday. 

Around 4.6 million people took part in the survey, which ran between July 4 and August 16. Three million of the respondents were from Germany. 

The EU Commission will officially present the results on Thursday, and did not wish to comment Wednesday. However, German newspaper Westfalenpost reported the results, citing well-informed sources in Brussels. 

Summertime in its current form was introduced in Germany in 1980 — and much earlier in some other EU member states — for the purpose of saving energy. Since 2002, the changeover has been uniformly regulated throughout the bloc.

Every year, EU member states put clocks forward one hour on the last Sunday of March and back again on the last Sunday in October.

There are currently three different time zones within in the EU: Western European Time or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), Central European Time, one hour ahead and Eastern European Time, two hours ahead of GMT.