Spain’s ills partially due to their time zone?
Revellers sing and play music at tables in the street after lunch during the third day of the San Fermin Running Of The Bulls festival, on July 8, 2013 in Pamplona, Spain.
Spain's economic ills have been blamed on many things: real estate speculation, debt, the euro but some Spanish lawmakers believe that the country's time zone may also be responsible.
A new parliamentary report has said that switching time zones may improve sleeping, eating and, most importantly, working habits – and by 'improve' the authors mean make people more economically productive.
Spain was not always on Central European Time, along with most of Western Europe.
In fact, Spain's time zone was changed from Greenwich Mean Time in 1942 by dictator Francisco Franco in order to follow that of Nazi Germany.
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The report states: "Spain for more than 71 years has not been in the correct time zone."
"All this has a negative effect on productivity, absenteeism, stress, accidents and school drop-out rates."
Instead, Spain should share the same time zone as the UK and Portugal.
The report claims that Spaniards are not getting enough sleep, eat too late (that's for sure) and go to bed later than other Europeans.
"Our timetable is determined more by the sun than by the clock. We eat at one o'clock in the afternoon and dine at eight, according to the sun, but the clock says it is three o'clock and 10 o'clock," the report said.
Let's just hope it wouldn't change the things everyone loves about Spain.
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