[avar]

> There were 4.6 million replies [to the online] consultation, 70% of which were from Germans.

Germans make up around 15% of the EU population. So by this metric they've got an out-sized democratic participation in the EU by a factor of almost 5x.

As seen on a solar map [1][2] Germany isn't even particularly badly impacted by this issue compared to say France or Spain. There's some truth to the saying that Germany basically runs the EU, but as results like this show mostly because they seem to be making an effort to give a crap about it and its policies.

1. http://blog.poormansmath.net/images/SolarTimeVsStandardTimeV... (source: http://blog.poormansmath.net/how-much-is-time-wrong-around-t...)

[Wildgoose]

If you don't vote, don't complain. I live in the UK and I also voted to end the twice-yearly wrecking of our body-clocks with the attendant accidents, injuries and deaths.

Moreover from an IT perspective it would be convenient if we don't pick permanent Daylight Saving Time in that the UK would effectively always be using UTC.

[fredley]

I don't know, BST (more sunlight in the evenings) would be better, and UTC happening to line up with GMT could result in a whole load of programmers getting quite far in their career before realising timezones are something you even need to account for...

[Asooka]

But BST would mean waking up an hour early all the time and that's its own kind of hell. Your body doesn't care for where the hand on the clock is and the standard 9am work start time is meant to allow you to get up at some normal time around 7 or 8am. I would rather have a normal sleep schedule than an hour of sunlight in the evening. Just wake up early and use the morning light if you need it.

[seszett]

There were other consultations though.

In the French poll, 2 million answers were given and 84% were also in favor of ending time savings, 60% wanted to keep summer time rather than winter time. For some reason, people often take France and Spain as examples of countries that would be badly impacted by a decision "taken by the Germans", but France and Spain are very much in favor of staying on summer time.

I don't know if the BBC is trying to push the idea that the decision is somehow undemocratic, but most countries in the EU have had consultations and as far as I know the results were in favor of giving up time savings everywhere.

[avar]

What survey are you referring to? I mean the one the EU did: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-5302_en.htm

Either you're mis-recalling that "2 million" number for France, or very coincidentally there was some poll specific to France whose result in France was exactly the same (84%) as the one the Commission conducted across the EU.

In any case, whether citizens in specific EU countries participate in polls held locally or held by member states isn't relevant if we're discussing how much citizens in various countries directly engage with EU institutions.

[seszett]

This is the French survey: http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/15/autres-commissions/com...

The results are here: https://www.vie-publique.fr/actualite/alaune/changement-heur... and 2 103 999 persons answered it, with 83.71% being in favor of dropping daylight savings time.

That served as a basis for the French government's contribution to the draft that was voted on at the EU parliament. The draft didn't drop from the sky, it was written by the European commission, which is made up of representatives from all EU countries.

[avar]

So the ~84% is a coincidence. Neat!

I'm not making some claim that the French don't have representation in the EU, but that in this case (for whatever reason) Germans have an outsized direct participation in the EU's own survey, and that might be a more general indicator for how they're more likely to directly deal with EU institutions in other matters, instead of leaving it to their national government.