Ireland faces baffling ‘time zone border’ after Brexit as EU votes to scrap daylight saving
THE island of Ireland could end up being split into two time zones after Brexit.
The EU parliament voted in March to scrap the custom of moving the bloc’s clocks forward by an hour in spring and back again in the autumn from 2021.
This would mean the Republic of Ireland would be in the same time zone all year round.
Fears have now emerged of a time-zone border between the Republic and Northern Ireland, because the UK would still revert from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time.
EU national governments still have to approve abolishing time-shifting, with a “qualified majority” of member states needed to back the move.
That means it needs the support of 55% of member states, representing at least 65% of the EU’s population.
Under the draft directive, member states would be able to choose whether to remain on “permanent summer” or “permanent winter” and would apply to the UK if we remained.
The UK government has said it has “no plans” to drop daylight-saving time, and Dublin announced it would oppose the directive.
Under current EU law, the clocks in all member states move forward an hour together on the last Sunday in March and move back on the last Sunday in October.
The former Conservative MEP John Flack accused the European Commission, which had promoted the plan to abolish daylight saving time, of acting like “time lords”.
British Summer Time ended at 2am this morning.
If this went through, it would not be the first time time split Britain and Ireland.
Dublin mean time, which used to be 25 minutes behind London, was scrapped in 1916 by the House of Commons after the Easter Rising.
As a result, when British clocks went back an hour for winter 1916, Irish clocks went back by only 35 minutes to synchronise time in the two countries.