The president of the Consell de la República, a private political organisation whose objective is the independence of Catalonia, Jordi Domingo, wants the region to align itself with Greenwich Mean Time, like in the UK, rather than Central European Time, which is the time zone used on the Spanish mainland.
The proposal was made by Domingo in an interview with Vilaweb, where he launched a series of long-term measures because independence will not happen overnight, but requires Catalans to do a number of things as if they were already independent, according to El Confidencial. Certain sectors of the independence movement have always argued that the current Spanish time zone is a legacy of Francoism and that it would make sense to adopt Greenwich Mean Time and, in doing so, seek to differentiate themselves from Spain.
Spanish times have apparently been out of sync since Franco’s time. Specifically, since 1940. Spain started to follow the German time changes as a gesture to be ‘closer’ to Hitler. Spanish clocks should be in time with Portugal, but they aren’t. The fact is that geographically Spain should be governed by London’s time zone. Since 1940, everything that happens in Spain really happens two hours ahead of time with respect to the sun. This is the reason that Spain’s customs are all later: having lunch at 3pm or going to bed at 11 pm.
Furthermore, since 2018, the European Commission has been debating whether to eliminate putting clocks forward and then back in the member states, after 84% of the 4.6 million European citizens who took part in the consultation voted in favour. Now, the problem lies in the fact that time zones remain fixed in each country and this point is where there is rising disagreement.
The European Commission itself, which put the proposal for cancelling the time changes on the table back in 2019, went back on its statement indicating that “no rushed change should be applied to the time zones” without all the European citizens knowing “the risks and opportunities that this involves.” Spain, taking into account the official calendar published in the OSG, will continue with European time and will continue to officially change the clocks over the next five years. Therefore, the last change won’t take place until at least March, 2027.