[LEAPSECS] one signature brings UTC to US

Clive D.W. Feather clive at demon.net
Fri Aug 10 03:51:27 EDT 2007


Poul-Henning Kamp said:

>> If Bush signs, then the US joins France, Germany, the EU, Australia,

>> and the rest on the list of countries whose legal time is UTC.

> EU is not a "country" and quite a state of confusion reigns with

> respect to UTC. Denmark uses "mean solar time on the 15th eastern

> longitude" and Sweden uses GMT (!).


The UK uses GMT. See the Summer Time Act 1972 and the Interpretation Act
1978.

Actually, the EU uses GMT:

Directive 2000/84/EC
<http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=32000L0084&model=guichett>:

Article 2

From 2002 onwards, the summer-time period shall begin, in every Member
State, at 1.00 a.m., Greenwich Mean Time, on the last Sunday in March.

Article 3

From 2002 onwards, the summer-time period shall end, in every Member
State, at 1.00 a.m., Greenwich Mean Time, on the last Sunday in October.

Checking the other languages:

ES "hora universal"
CS "svetoveho casu (GMT)" [diacritical marks omitted]
DA "verdenstid (UTC)"
DE "Weltzeit"
ET "Greenwichi"
EL "oora Gkrinouits" [transliterated; "oo" is omega with dot above]
FR "temps universel"
IT "ora universale"
LV "pec Grinvicas"
LT "GMT"
HU "greenwich-i"
MT "Greenwich Mean Time"
NL "wereldtijd"
PL "uniwersalnego (GMT)"
PT "tempo universal"
SK "greenwichskeho casu"
SL "univerzalnem koordiniranem casu (UTC)"
FI "(GMT)"
SV "Greenwichtid (Greenwich Mean Time, GMT)"

So of 20 languages, we seem to have:
11 using Greenwich Mean Time (EN CS ET EL LV LT HU MT SK FI SV)
6 using "universal time" (ES DE FR IT NL PT)
1 using "universal time (GMT)" (PL)
2 using UTC (DA SL)

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