Initially scheduled for 2021, the end of the time change was to be a small revolution.

But coronavirus obliges, the priorities of the Council of the European Union have changed: this project is now relegated far from the priorities. 

It was to be a small revolution announced for 2021: the end of the time change.

While France switches to winter time overnight from Saturday to Sunday, gaining in the process sixty minutes of sleep, the announced abolition of this practice risks falling behind, in particular because of the coronavirus.

To the point of dropping this important change into the water?

Europe 1 takes stock.

The coronavirus has shaken up priorities

Remember, last year, the European Parliament passed a bill to abolish the seasonal time change.

Each European country must in theory decide by April 1, 2021 at the latest whether it wishes to stay permanently on summer or winter time.

But the project is for the moment blocked by the Council of the European Union, which has still not adopted it.

In the meantime, the coronavirus has hit the Old Continent and the world, relegating this decision to the background in the face of the management of a health crisis of unprecedented magnitude.

"For the moment, the end of the time change is not on the Council's agenda", confirms the EELV MEP behind the resolution, Karima Delli.

"I think it will be a little compromised for 2021. Especially since it is not an emergency," she confides in the columns of the

Southwest

.

"But in any case, we will have to address the issue before the end of the year, if only to see if we postpone the decision."

A rejected puzzle 

If we stick to the calendar, still in force pending a response from the Council of the European Union, time is running out: the populations of countries wishing to keep summer time - including the French, the Portuguese , the Irish, or the Poles - are supposed to change for the last time on March 27, 2021. And those who want to definitively opt for winter time - Finns, Danes or even Dutch -, October 30, 2021.

Today, 17 European countries are set on the same time, and there is a maximum of two hours apart from one end of the European Union to the other, in three different time zones.

But with the end of the seasonal time change, the amplitude could climb to three hours depending on one's choice, and that would lead to complex daily situations as well as economic disruption.

A measure which therefore risks turning into a puzzle, when it will once again take center stage.