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Here's why Finland doesn't like DST. In the south of Finland (like Helsinki), in the summer, the sun rises at 4am and sets at 11pm. The entire night is twilig

Here's why Finland doesn't like DST. In the south of Finland (like Helsinki), in the summer, the sun rises at 4am and sets at 11pm. The entire night is twilight, and it doesn't get completely dark at all. In the winter, the sun rises at 9:15am and sets at 3:15pm. At it's height, the sun barely rises above the trees. In the northern parts of Finland, things are even more extreme: for a long period of time in the summer, the sun doesn't set at all [1]. Similarly in the winter, the sun won't rise at all [2]. Therefore, for the Finnish people, DST is mostly useless. In the summer there is no shortage of daylight in the evening or in the morning. In the winter it's going to be dark in the morning, and dark in the afternoon anyway. For most of the year, there's nothing be gained by moving the clocks around. Moving the clocks mostly throws your sleep cycles off for a few days. Especially families with small children seem to get hit especially hard by this. That all said, perhaps Finland should not move to totally abolish DST, since some people in southern Europe appear to like it. At the very least, though, northern EU states should be allowed to opt out of DST. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_sun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_sun [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_night

cornholio 9y ago
I see your point and indeed there is little to be gained in the extreme north; people are already chronically light stressed and a small sleep shock with no real daylight benefits could have the claimed psychological effects. But this is not the case for the vast majority of the Europe's population. Why would DST be mandatory anyway? We are already using different timezones, I doubt it would disrupt trade, airtrafic or anything if an EU country does not change timezones when others do.
- metafunctor 9y ago
  DST in Europe has a bit of a history. The European Community, consisting mostly of countries in the southern parts of Europe, decided in 1981 that DST was a good idea. For political reasons I don't fully understand, Finland adopted the same DST convention in 1981. Possibly there was a need to appear to be in line with other European countries. Maybe there was fear that international business might be disrupted if the time difference between Finland and a given European country wasn't always the same, no matter the date. Certainly the Finnish people didn't need or want DST any more than they need or want it today. Later, DST was encoded as a (mandatory) EU directive in 2002. All relevant countries were already following the practice, so making it a directive probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Given the amount of international dealings with non-EU states with varying DST conventions, it doesn't seem that useful to force the same DST rules on all EU states.

cornholio 9y ago

I see your point and indeed there is little to be gained in the extreme north; people are already chronically light stressed and a small sleep shock with no real daylight benefits could have the claimed psychological effects. But this is not the case for the vast majority of the Europe's population. Why would DST be mandatory anyway? We are already using different timezones, I doubt it would disrupt trade, airtrafic or anything if an EU country does not change timezones when others do.

metafunctor 9y ago
DST in Europe has a bit of a history. The European Community, consisting mostly of countries in the southern parts of Europe, decided in 1981 that DST was a good idea. For political reasons I don't fully understand, Finland adopted the same DST convention in 1981. Possibly there was a need to appear to be in line with other European countries. Maybe there was fear that international business might be disrupted if the time difference between Finland and a given European country wasn't always the same, no matter the date. Certainly the Finnish people didn't need or want DST any more than they need or want it today. Later, DST was encoded as a (mandatory) EU directive in 2002. All relevant countries were already following the practice, so making it a directive probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Given the amount of international dealings with non-EU states with varying DST conventions, it doesn't seem that useful to force the same DST rules on all EU states.