Alex Trelinski
CLOCKS in Spain will go back one hour this Sunday from 3am to 2am with the end of summer daylight saving time.
There has been debate in Spain over recent years as to whether the country should be on GMT rather than an hour ahead of countries such as the UK and Portugal.
There have also been calls for daylight saving time to be scrapped altogether.
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Spain used to be on GMT until dictator General Francisco Franco aligned the nation’s clocks with Nazi Germany.
In 1940, Franco signed the order to move the clocks forward ahead of a crucial meeting with Adolf Hitler at a train station on Spain’s border with France.
Although Franco refused to drag Spain into a new conflict so soon after its own Civil War, he decided that in time zones at least, his nation would be linked to Berlin.
There have been no official moves yet by the Spanish government to reverse the change with many discussions about it for over a decade.
A parliamentary commission in 2013 recommended Spain return to GMT bringing it in line with the UK and Portugal
Across the European Union there is a movement to end the ‘daylight saving’ practice and abolish the twice-yearly change completely.
In 2019 the EU parliament voted to abolish the biannual changing of the clocks giving nations the option to choose between summer or winter time zones.
But the bill has been mired in bureaucracy and delayed until at least October 2026.
There is a general consensus that clock changes should be scrapped with 80% agreeing, but a survey conducted by Spain’s Centre for Higher Research (CIS) carried out in November 2023 showed that 66% of those questioned would opt to stay in summer time.
It would therefore put the country(barring the Canary Islands who are on GMT) two hours ahead of the UK and Portugal during the winter months.
Politicians in the Balearic Islands- the most easterly part of Spain- have previously expressed their desire to stick to ‘summer time’ all year round, keeping lighter early evenings as a result.
