Bulgarian Energy Ministry to prepare national position on choosing summer or winter time
Bulgaria’s Energy Ministry said on October 9 that it would draft the national position on whether the country would choose summer or winter time, following the European Commission proposal to end the system of twice-yearly clock changes.
Bulgarian citizens are entitled to vote in an online poll on the question, and have until October 11 to do so.
By October 8, more than 7000 had voted. Voting was continuing apace, at a rate of close to 100 people an hour.
Bulgarian National Television reported that would-be users had complained that the system was slow and they had been unable to vote.
The Energy Ministry told BNT that the problems had arisen from overloading because of the requirement to register before being able to vote. Work was being done to eliminate the problem so that the system could cope with the traffic, the ministry said.
On September 12, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, confirming that the Commission would comply with the findings of an EU-wide survey, said that it was proposing scrapping the time changes that have been happening every year in March and October.
Under the Commission’s proposal, each EU country would notify by April 2019 whether it intends to apply permanent summer or wintertime.
The last mandatory change to summertime would take place on March 31 2019. After that, the EU member states wishing to permanently switch back to wintertime would still be able to make one last seasonal clock change on October 27 2019, would no longer be possible.
(Photo: arjanrichter)
