IN THE summer, Spaniards enjoy their long evenings, having a drink at a pavement terraza before dining at 10pm or later. Yet the evenings are far longer than they should be: by local clocks, the sun sets an hour and 20 minutes later in Madrid than in New York City, though both are on the same latitude. That is because Spain (except the Canary Islands) is in the wrong time zone. Madrid is on a similar line of longitude to Swansea in Wales. Its clocks are set to Central European Time, the same as Warsaw or Tirana, some 24 degrees or 2,000kms (1,200 miles) to the east.
Spanish time is a historical anomaly. When Franco drew close to Hitler in the second world war, he changed his country’s clocks to mimic those of Berlin. Nobody ever changed them back. The result is that Spaniards live out of sync with the sun. A “breakfast” meeting tends to be at 9am. At this time of year those hoping for a stroll in the cool of evening at 8pm face an oven-like wall of heat.
A second anomaly compounds the problem—the long lunch break. This dates from when cities were small enough to permit an afternoon siesta at home and when, in post-civil war penury, many Spaniards did two separate jobs. The result is a wearyingly long day, with much hanging around. In private firms, workers tend to toil from 9am to 7pm with a lunch break of an hour or two at 2pm. To cater to after-work shoppers, department stores and supermarkets stay open till 10pm. Prime-time television runs until 11.30pm. In June the televised election debate among the party leaders finished well past midnight.
The upshot is that Spaniards sleep far less than the European average (41 minutes fewer, according to Angel Largo of Arhoe, a group campaigning for more rational hours). This also makes them less productive at work. “When we’re lunching, our European partners are working, and when we go back to work, they’re preparing to go home,” sighs Mr Largo.
His campaign wants Spain to adopt GMT (like its Iberian neighbour, Portugal) as a means to change habits, with a shorter lunch-break and more conventional working hours. It has made progress. The ruling Peoples’ Party, the opposition Socialists and liberal Cuidadanos all support switching to GMT. “It’s a relevant issue” for productivity, says Luis de Guindos, the economy minister. But it could only be approved by consensus, he adds.
The force of habit is strong. A law to cut civil servants’ lunch break to one hour to allow them to go home earlier has been widely ignored. Many Spaniards are happy with their long, convivial evenings. Mr Largo is convinced that rationality will win out. But it will take more concerted political backing to persuade Spaniards to trade their traditional lifestyle for a decent night’s sleep.
