Don't let them take away our hours of sunshine!

With this dramatic plea – "Don't take away our hours of sunshine!" – many people have expressed themselves on social media after learning that the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has proposed to the European Union to abolish daylight saving time that occur twice a year (we just had the one corresponding to autumn) and leave only one stable schedule throughout the year.

The population has quickly become polarized between proponents of so-called "winter time" and "summer time." Polls conducted in previous years have consistently shown a majority in favor of summer time. Why do so many people support this schedule when most scientists claim that winter is better for our health? Is it because we associate it with vacations, as many media outlets suggest? I believe the answer lies in deeper, more structural causes closely related to working hours in our country.

A person on network X said, giving voice to what many others think: "We have dinner at 9 or 10 pm because Let's work until 7 pm and, for whatever reason, we don't feel like leaving work, having dinner and going to sleep without having a single hour of life other than that workerAnd on top of that, you expect these hours of life to always be spent in darkness." This message is significant because it is neither marginal nor isolated, but rather reflects a fairly widespread situation. In our country, 30% of workers who started their workday in the morning are still at their jobs at 7:00 p.m., and between 8% and 10% are still on the time use plan promoted by the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy and developed by the Time Use Initiative, a law that is still in the process of being processed.

The study acknowledges that Spain is the European country where workers finish their workday latest, and that this negatively impacts their health, work-life balance, and productivity. It emphasizes that this extended workday is linked to very long lunch breaks, a deeply ingrained culture that rewards physical presence in the workplace, and rigid schedules over the greater flexibility seen in other parts of Europe.

Normally, it's after work that we dedicate time to childcare and recreation, volunteering, or spending time with friends. This, and nothing else, is the reason so many people opt for permanent summer hours. The difficult balance between work and personal life comes to the forefront again in this debate about schedules: do we want to dedicate the best hours of the day—those with daylight—to work or to our personal lives? This is the question that underlies many opinions.

In surveys conducted so far, the majority of the population has opted for permanent summer time. In the European Commission's 2018 consultation, 56% of the population responded in favor of it. summertime (summer time), versus the 32% who opted for the wintertime (winter schedule).In Spain, a 2024 survey by the Consumers and Users Organization (OCU) showed that 70% of consumers prefer summer time, compared to 23% who prefer winter time.

However, the decision isn't so simple, since most scientists, and especially sleep and chronobiology experts, agree that our bodies and brains function better on winter time. We sleep more and better, reduce the risk of heart attacks and accidents, and live more in sync with sunlight. From this perspective, maintaining winter time year-round isn't an ideological or political issue, but a matter of health.

Catalonia already has a tradition of movements advocating for adaptation to European time. Platforms like the Time Reform Platform paved the way, defending the liberation of hours for personal life. This objective is complemented by the work towards reduced working hours promoted by the national government and the proposal for compressed work schedules, among other possible courses of action. But in this vital equation, we cannot ignore the situation of the self-employed and those who still work until 9:00 p.m. Decisions must be made that promote a balance between work and personal time. The summer-winter seasonal cycle is a tiresome debate that will hardly resolve the situation. The true victory lies in the liberation of evening hours, the keystone that can generate social consensus.