Daylight Saving Time in the EU

[Charriu]

Spain has the effect already during the time of the DST so it doesn't change much if they have it during the winter-half too.

I recently read that a simple switch to DST would move the sunrise in La Coruna, Spain, and Le Havre, France close to 10.00 a.m. during the winter.
While the majority of the German population may feel putting up with an additional hour of darkness in the morning is an acceptable trade-off, I somehow doubt that all countries in the EU would be as excited about a permanent switch to DST.
Even for Germany, it probably depends on how well you deal with working during the dark in the morning, the majority opinion among scientists seems to be that standard time causes the least health issues.

Everyone knows how bad they feel because of the switch. Everyone knows how they love the long sunny evening in summer but noone has experienced how long the darkness will last and effect them if DST is effective in Winter.  There is a good chance that in a few years people will clamour to remove DST in winter.

That's more or less what happened in Russia. They abolished the clock change and kept summertime, but in 2014(?) they switched back to normal time.

I just find it very strange that a poll on which 4 Mio from ~500 Mio people voted is suddenly such a result to push for it

Is this a EU difference?  Here I would expect that politicians would jump on any proposal that had 80%+ approval, so long as the polling agency seemed unbiased enough for the result to be plausible.  Even a proposal that all legislators have to walk on their hands, if it got 80% approval, they would rush to make it happen.  There's a saying that leadership is about finding a parade and walking in front of it.  Anything that gets that much approval is a parade.

It makes sense to regard 80% percent in a poll with a turnout close to 50% but here we have a turnout of ~1% so 99.2% either don't care or are ok with the current system.
Are you sure that the loud 0.8% of the populace should rule?

Don't forget that they had massive server problems and the page was unreachable at times. This could also have put off a lot of people to participate. Another factor is if the people even knew about this survey. Just looking at this threat you find people, who didn't know about it. The reason why a high number of germans participated in the survey is propably due to the german news spreading the message about this survey.
But even if you consider those factors I highly doubt that the participation rate would have been more then 10% across all of the EU.

[Cheron]

Usually the EU doesn't run polls. IIRC this was the first one.

They actually run quite a lot of polls. This one got by far the most responses (with >4.5 M, next has 500k).

[Rowain]

Usually the EU doesn't run polls. IIRC this was the first one.

They actually run quite a lot of polls. This one got by far the most responses (with >4.5 M, next has 500k).

Not really . This site is a general site for online Surveys usable by anyone. You find Surveys that are nothing more than a feedback-site for a course on some schools etc.. Several field this Disclaimer
The European Commission is not responsible for the content of questionnaires created using the EUSurvey service - it remains the sole responsibility of the form creator and manager. The use of EUSurvey service does not imply a recommendation or endorsement, by the European Commission, of the views expressed within them.

[Cheron]

Usually the EU doesn't run polls. IIRC this was the first one.

They actually run quite a lot of polls. This one got by far the most responses (with >4.5 M, next has 500k).

Not really . This site is a general site for online Surveys usable by anyone. You find Surveys that are nothing more than a feedback-site for a course on some schools etc.. Several field this Disclaimer
The European Commission is not responsible for the content of questionnaires created using the EUSurvey service - it remains the sole responsibility of the form creator and manager. The use of EUSurvey service does not imply a recommendation or endorsement, by the European Commission, of the views expressed within them.

Yes, really Several of them are questionnaires by the European Commission and these don't field the disclaimer.  

The link I gave was misleading, though, sorry. The tool they use was made available to the public, which is why there are not only European Commission polls there. Here is a better overview.

[Mardoc]

It makes sense to regard 80% percent in a poll with a turnout close to 50% but here we have a turnout of ~1% so 99.2% either don't care or are ok with the current system.
Are you sure that the loud 0.8% of the populace should rule?

Should?  No, not at all sure, it depends on the context.  But in practice, I think they will rule, whatever I think about 'should', at least on the narrow topic that they care about.  

Lots of examples where there is something that 1% of people care about an awful lot and 99% who mostly don't care, and the 1% end up getting their way.  It's because they're willing to use that topic as a litmus test and everyone else is voting on other issues. Some of those examples I approve of, others I dislike, but it's definitely a thing that happens.

In this case, the main uncertainty is whether the poll caught a meaningful sample - it matters whether the 99.2% are 'don't care' or if they do care strongly and just didn't hear about the poll in time.  Likely the parliamentary process will take sufficient time and the MPs will listen to feedback (or their staffs will) so that they can answer that question before the change becomes law.

[Old Harry]

I think it might save some money /slightly reduce carbon emissions to get rid of dst. Very old,  likely out of date article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...ve-energy/

Oh, and polls with much smaller responses are used to make decisions all the time. The important thing is how representative the sample is.