Want a quick and easy way to fix Spain’s economy? Switch to Greenwich Mean Time

Are the Spanish snoozing and losing because their clocks are out of sync?

Spain – famously passionate, hot, dry, politicised and, currently at least, undergoing a financial downturn that shows only the merest green shoots of recovery.

These are the ‘facts’, or at least widely held beliefs. But I left one obvious ‘fact’ off that list. Do you know which one I’m referring to? Which famous facet of Spain, Spaniards and Spanish life has been omitted? That they’re good at football? Well, yes they are, but that’s hardly related to the point in hand. That Spaniards are good-looking? I think so, yes, but that’s even more subjective than the actual trait I’m talking about…

Give up? Or did you guess that the next word I am going to write after this is… lazy. That’s right. People the world over have an image of the Spanish as workshy, leisurely people who like nothing more than a good siesta under the hot Spanish sun. It’s a – excuse the pun – tired old cliché that is as inaccurate as it is insulting.

Spaniards actually work some of the longest hours in Europe, yet Spain is among the least productive nations in the EU. So there is evidently a problem, and one group called the Asociación para la Racionalización de los Horarios Españoles (Association for the Streamlining of Spanish Business Hours… so let’s call it ARHOE for short), thinks it has hit upon a novel solution to not only alter this perception, but to actually improve Spain’s working culture and smooth its professional relations with other countries.

Their plan is simple. As the clocks recently went forward all over the world, ARHOE have campaigned for Spain’s to stay as they are. To leave that dial alone and stick with ‘winter time’. This would, effectively, bring the country in line with the UK, and GMT – Greenwich Mean Time.

There’s a sensible argument to be had, and this article by the Atlantic explores it in greater depth. But to summarise, ARHOE’s argument is that Madrid should really be in the same time zone as London because they share roughly the same band of longitude. So far, so sensible.

But the campaign group also believe that Spain’s notorious proclivity for living life long into the wee hours is actually because the country’s culture still revolves around lunar time, ie, Spaniards rise when it gets light and stay out ‘late’ only because their mechanical, digital, man-made clocks (rather than their internal body clocks) tell them it’s late. They are effectively being done a disservice by rising at 8am, when it’s often still dark, and then staying out until Midnight.

In actuality, claim ARHOE, their 8am should really be 7am, and Spaniards should be tucked up in bed at that hour while the European countries to the east of them – blessed with an earlier sunrise – should be getting up. Rising an hour later would bring them in sync with the rest of Europe – which would be great for business, it is claimed.

Changing an entire country’s culture by changing the clocks seems rather radical, but when you read the article and look at the facts, it holds up. Perhaps this could be a quick and effective – not to mention free and easy – fix for the Spanish economy?