With out announcement set by the Icelandic government offices says that Iceland will not change its clocks – despite the popular support for the operation and the fact that Iceland is in the wrong time zone.
Many people might find it strange that Iceland is in GMT, but it has been there since 1968. Just a casual look at Iceland’s position on the time zone map shows how peculiar its location looks:
As such, although it may be noon in London and Reykjavík at the same time, the position of the sun at its highest point in Iceland is around 13:00 GMT – in the western regions its highest position appears even later.
After much discussion in the parliament, a working group was set up under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. In 2018, the ministry concluded that Iceland’s peculiar position on the time zone map had in fact affected people’s health – in particular, these effects include an increased risk of illness, poorer schooling, increased depression and fatigue. The case was then submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office for consideration.
The Prime Minister’s Office decided to consider three possible options: set the clocks back an hour, launch an educational campaign that encourages people to go to bed earlier or have schools and businesses open an hour later.
As far as public opinion is concerned, all of last year, most Icelanders who had an opinion on the matter were in favor of the clocks being set back for one hour.
Despite this, the Prime Minister’s Office came to the conclusion that there was not enough convincing evidence to justify that the hours were hours back. On the contrary, they calculated that daytime hours would decrease by 13% over the year if the clocks were changed.
As such, Iceland will remain in its strange time zone, at least for now.
Source: The Nordic Page