EU MPs Vote to End Daylight Saving Time

Rabat – The European members of parliament have voted in favor of ending the Daylight saving time (DST), with 410 voices in for and 192 against.

The vote results do not mean however that the EU countries will abolish the practice. Instead, concerned European countries will take it into consideration when making the decision.

Since 2001, all EU countries have been using the DST, adding one hour on the last Sunday of March of each year and switching it back to standard time on the last Sunday of October.

The goal of the practice of changing time twice yearly was to save energy. But studies have shown that DST has been detrimental to more damage to the health of people. Its contribution to increasing the amount of energy savings was marginal when compared with the mental troubles it caused among populations.

The EU countries will now have the choice to whether stick with the summertime or keep the winter time.

In Morocco, meanwhile, the daylight saving was supposed to end on Sunday, October 28, but Moroccans were taken aback by the government decision to stay in DST all year round.

The move angered Moroccans who were used to move their clocks back by one hour every year on the last Sunday of October.

The government justified its move, saying that the decision was based on a study they conducted. The alleged study found that the “adoption of ‘doubling timing’ has created a kind of confusion,” according to the government.

As 68 percent of Moroccans were against a permanent shift to using DST, the government explained that the decision is aimed to end changing time four times a year. Morocco goes back temporarily to GMT during the holy month of Ramadan.

In recent months, speculations ran wild that Renault, and not the Moroccan government, was behind Morocco’s decision to maintain GMT+1.

In a comment on LinkedIn, Chikhi Adib, the General Director of Altitude RH, a human resources consultancy, stated that Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn had come to Morocco to “personally demand” the permanent adoption of DST.