President Luis Lacalle Pou assured this Saturday that there are “scientific documents” that advise not to change the schedule in summer although he said that the government is going to have “a discussion” on this topic to make a decision.
“Today morning I was reading scientific documents on the matter that advise against doing it. They are scientists, not from the tourist activity”, He said at a press conference from Florida.
The president thus raised a position contrary to that of the Minister of Tourism, Tabaré Viera, that this week He assured that he is a “supporter” of advancing the time in summer.
Speaking to Who is Who, Viera said that “there is no serious study” on the impact of advancing the time in summer, so the Ministry of Tourism (Mintur) will carry out “a survey and a study to see how much impact taking that decision ”.
Lacalle advanced that the government is going to have “a discussion” paying attention to “an important sector that had a very bad time” during the pandemic but also taking into account “other issues”.
The positions on whether or not to change the schedule during the summer months have two libraries. On the one hand, there are the tour operators with their historical position of refusing to advance the clocks one hour due to the negative economic impact that this generates for their branch of activity.
On the other side, more than 70% of the population agrees to advance the time, according to a survey commissioned at the time by the National Directorate of Energy.
The measure to advance the time was in force between 2006 and 2014 and was discontinued by President Tabaré Vázquez in 2015.
