Updated 19:30

Plans to scrap daylight savings time in the EU could be set to pose a further headache in Brexit negotiations.

European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker has recommended that the plans be put into action after a public consultation found that a majority of EU citizens were in favour.

The public consultation has been open across the EU since May – with the majority of Irish people voting in favour abolishing the bi-annual clock change.

However, the proposal has prompted concern about the creation of a Brexit "time border" - with Belfast and Dublin running on different times.

Meanwhile, depending on the terms of any ‘backstop’ solution for avoiding a hard border in Ireland, Northern Ireland could also align with EU time - putting the region on a different time to Britain for seven months of the year.

Consultation

The online consultation received 4.6 million responses from all 28 member states - the highest number of responses ever received in any commission public consultation.

According to the preliminary results, 84% of respondents are in favour of putting an end to changing the clocks

While 88% of Irish people who took part in the survey want the change abolished - with only 12% suggesting it should stay.

Other high rates for the removal of the change were seen in Croatia (90%), Lithuania (91%) and Finland and Portugal (both 95%).

The only EU member states which saw a majority wanting to keep the change were Greece Cyprus - at 56% and 53% respectively.

Source: European Commission

"We carried out a survey, millions responded and believe that in future, summer time should be year-round, and that's what will happen," Mr Juncker, the European Commission President, told German TV on Friday.

"I will recommend to the commission that, if you ask the citizens, then you have to do what the citizens say.

"We will decide on this today, and then it will be the turn of the member states and the European Parliament."

European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker 

The final results will be published in the coming weeks, and the Commission will make a proposal to the European Parliament and Council with a view of changing the current arrangements.

European Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, said: "Millions of Europeans used our public consultation to make their voices heard.

"The message is very clear: 84% of them do not want the clocks to change anymore.

"We will now act accordingly and prepare a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and the Council, who will then decide together."

The preliminary results also indicate that more than three-quarters (76%) of respondents consider that changing the clock twice a year is a 'very negative' or 'negative' experience.

This related to negative impacts on health, increase of road accidents or the lack of energy savings.

Source: European Commission

Running from 4th July until 16th August, the online consultation attracted the highest number of responses ever received by the EU for any such survey.

However, preliminary results released by the commission reveal wildly different participation rates across the bloc.

For example, roughly three million Germans took part in the consultation (3.79% of the country's population); but less than 15,000 UK citizens participated (0.02% of the UK population) and only around 8,000 Romanians gave their view (0.04% of the country's population).

Mediterranean countries such as Cyprus, Greece and Malta were most against abolishing clock changes.

Most EU member states have an old tradition of clock change arrangements, many of which date back as far as the First and Second World Wars or to the oil crisis in the 1970s.

Since the 1980s, the EU gradually adopted legislation whereby all states would agree to coordinate the clock change and put an end to diverging national schedules.

Since 1996, all Europeans have been changing their clock forward by one hour on the last Sunday of March and back by one hour on the last Sunday of October.

That will end if the commission sees its recommendation accepted by MEPs and member states.

Additional reporting Michael Staines and IRN ...