[LEAPSECS] ITU-R SG7 to consider UTC on October 4

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <4C607952.2090301 at yahoo.com>, Michael Deckers writes:


>>  They ratified the EU directive in a Danish law, most recently

>>  (http://retsinformation.w0.dk/print.aspx?id=22064) which defines

>>  that DST ("sommertid") starts 02:00 (local time) (etc).

>

>    I am confused: there is no time scale specified in the Danish law

>    quoted. Do you mean that the reference in the footnote is supposed

>    to include the Danish text of a European Directive into Danish law,

>    without even explicitly quoting it?


Yes.


>>  So now we have:

>> 	

>>  A) The law about "determination of the time" says solar time at -15long.

>>

>>  B) EU directive says DST starts at 01:00Z

>

>    No. The text of European Directive 2000/84/EC of 2001-01-19 is

>    issued by the EU in 22 languages, all with equal standing.

>    For the time scale determining the beginning and end of

>    summer time, these translations refer to:

>[...]

>    -- World time with UTC in parentheses in 1 case (DA), and


And since this one is controlling for Denmark, Denmark is now
on UTC+1h/2h timescale.


>    In my opinion, this shows that the Directive does not

>    intend to prescribe the time scale. Or do you

>    think that it was the idea that the Danes and Slovenes

>    should follow UTC while the British follow GMT? Then certainly

>    the Welsh, Gaelic, Catalan, Basque,.. people would want to have

>    their own versions!


I have personally helped installed TCP/IP on all computers in the
European Parliament in an earlier job.  I met a LOT of the translators
back then.  I can tell you that a detail like the proper name for
a timescale does not even register on their radar.

So yes, I will argue that the directive specifies that all countries
in EU change summertime at the same exact instant and that this
is defined on the UTC timescale, which people call all sorts of
different crap for historical, and in the case of GMT, hysterical,
reasons.

I can absolutely guarantee you, that if your argument is that
the directive does _not_ say they should switch the same instant,
you will have absolutely no traction in the EU-mindset, which
is hell-bent on unifying the countries to a degree you can not
even begin to fathom.

Poul-Henning

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