Poll: 48% of Bulgarians want to stay on winter time when daylight saving time ends
Forty-eight per cent of Bulgarians would prefer to stay on winter time when the system of twice-yearly changing of clocks ends, according to the findings of a poll by the Exacta Research agency, released on October 11.
Thirty-two per cent would prefer staying on summer time and the rest were undecided.
The poll was done among 1000 adult Bulgarians between September 28 and October 5 in more than 90 places in the country.
Support for staying on winter time was largest among women, people older than 59 and people living in places other than Sofia. Support for permanently staying on summer time was heaviest among people aged between 30 and 40, those with higher education and residents of Sofia.
The findings of the Exacta Research poll were released on the final day that voting is open on an online survey by the Bulgarian government on the matter. More than 12 000 Bulgarians have voted in the poll, which requires registration to participate.
Bulgaria’s Energy Ministry said on October 9 that it would prepare the national position on the issue, after taking into account the opinions of various institutions.
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: Daniel McCollum/freeimages.com)
