The European Commission will recommend EU member states abolish daylight saving, where clocks are advanced by one hour in summer, its president Jean-Claude Juncker said on German television Friday.
"We carried out a survey, millions responded and believe that in future, summer time should be year-round, and that's what will happen," he told public broadcaster ZDF, adding that the European Commission planned to decide on the matter later Friday.
"I will recommend to the commission that, if you ask the citizens, then you have to do what the citizens say," said Juncker, speaking in German.
"We will decide on this today, and then it will be the turn of the member states and the European Parliament."
An online poll suggested that more than 80 percent of Europeans were against the annual ritual of adjusting clocks forward by one hour in the spring and then back an hour in the autumn, a practice used across most of Europe and North America.
The European Commission noted that the survey received over 4.5 million responses from all EU28 countries, the highest number of responses ever received in any Commission public consultation.
Violeta Bulc, the commissioner for transport, said in the statement that millions of Europeans used the consultation to make their voices heard.
"The message is very clear: 84 percent of them do not want the clocks to change anymore," Bulc said. "We will now act accordingly and prepare a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and the Council, who will then decide together."
The Commission said the final results of the public consultation will be published in the coming weeks.
The Commission noted that since the 1980's, the EU gradually adopted legislation whereby all member states would agree to coordinate the clock change and put an end to diverging national schedules.
"Since 1996, all Europeans have been changing their clock forward by one hour on the last Sunday of March and by one hour backward on the last Sunday of October," it said.
"The purpose of EU rules was not to harmonize the time regime in the EU but to address the problems, notably for the transport and logistics sectors, which arise from an uncoordinated application of clock-changes in the course of the year," the Commission said, adding:
"In parallel to the daylight saving time arrangement in the EU, the member states apply three different time zones or standard times -- the decision on the standard time is a national competence."
Proponents of daylight saving say the longer evening daylight hours in the summer help save energy and bolster productivity.
Opponents argue that some people cannot easily adapt to the change and feel it has a short-term negative impact on their health.
