Calls have been made to change the timings in a region of Spain to align with the UK. The region currently operates in Central European Time, but a political organisation wants it to differentiate from the rest of the Spanish mainland.
In a recent interview, Jordi Domingo, president of the Consell de la República, proposed a number of measures to make Catalonia independent. These included adopting Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), an hour behind Spain, to move away from the remainder of the nation. It is argued that the current Spanish time zone is a legacy of Francisco Franco, who wanted to follow German time changes to be “closer” to Adolf Hitler.
As reported by the Majorca Daily Bulletin, this means that Spain is actually two hours ahead of time with respect to the sun. Spanish people tend to have lunch at a later time of 3pm and go to bed later than usual at 11pm.
Domingo believes the hour difference “could be extraordinarily powerful”. He explained: “Why don’t we Catalans change the time? Why don’t we put ourselves on the Greenwich meridian? Why don’t the self-employed professionals, who are in charge in our country, say that we will work hours according to Catalan time?”
He added: “If 200,000 people change our timetable, we act and we end up forcing them to distinguish between Spanish and Catalan timetables, we have won, we have started to impose our own way of doing things.
“You show that you are sovereign, that you are in charge and that Spanish law does not influence you. We can also tell foreigners that the Catalan schedule is different.”
In 2018, 84% of 4.6 million Europeans voted in favour of changing the clocks every year. Although the public consultation showed huge support to end the twice-yearly practice of changing clocks, the EU Council is yet to make a final decision on the matter.
The most common reasons for ending the clock changes are the negative impacts on human health and disruption of sleep cycles. Experts have compared the time change, particularly when clocks go forward in spring, to jet lag, as it can disrupt our bodies and hormone levels.
The European Commission said “no rushed change should be applied to the time zones” without all the European citizens knowing “the risks and opportunities that this involves.”