Time is of the essence for French leadership

Date: 06/03/1997

FRANCE remains on a collision course with its EU neighbours, insisting that it should not be forced to change its clocks every spring with the rest of Europe.

EU transport ministers must decide next week whether to overrule French objections and simply roll over the existing summertime regime - under which all Union countries move their clocks forward one hour at the end of March and back again at the end of October - for a further four years until 2001.

French Prime Minister Alain Juppé's government favours abandoning the summertime regime and wants flexibility written into EU law to allow any countries which want to opt out to do so.

But Paris is unlikely to find much support for its campaign from anywhere except the UK, which is in favour of a degree of flexibility on the grounds of 'subsidiarity' - the principle that the EU should not act in areas which can be left to national governments.

Other member states have declared their opposition to the plan.

“France's immediate neighbours are not at all happy. They see it as France deliberately walking away from a harmonisation measure designed to ensure that business and transport run smoothly,” said a member state official.

French calls for changes to the rules to allow for an opt-out are likely to be ignored, with ministers adopting a common position on the directive at their meeting next Tuesday (11 March). This would then be referred back to MEPs, who last year expressed sympathy for French concerns.

If Paris does elect to follow the recommendations of last year's report by a French parliamentary committee and abandon the practice of putting its clocks forward and back each year, it could face legal problems.

“The directive is not explicit about whether it is compulsory to apply summertime, but most legal experts think the answer is probably yes,” said one official.

The European Commission is anxious to ensure clocks are adjusted at the same time in all member states, fearing timetabling chaos if this is not done.

At present, the UK, Ireland and Portugal are one hour behind the main group of EU countries, with Finland and Greece a further hour ahead.

Spice has been added to the debate in recent weeks by suggestions that Greece is now considering synchronising its clocks with Central European Time.