A bill has been submitted to parliament that would, if passed into law, make a number of changes to the dates of some of Iceland’s official holidays.
Vísir reports that Bright Future have submitted the bill, which seeks to correct situations when holidays overlap or occur during weekends.
As one example, the Icelandic holiday of First Day of Summer (Sumardaginn fyrsta) is held on the first Thursday between 19 and 25 April. However, Maundy Thursday – the Thursday before Good Friday – has at times happened on the same day. To remedy this, Bright Future proposes that on such occasions, an official holiday be held on the preceeding Wednesday.
The First of May – Iceland’s Labour Day – would be moved to the first Monday in May, and the preceeding weekend would then be called “Workers’ Weekend”.
The law also seeks to ensure that Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and Independence Day are guaranteed holidays. In the event that both Christmas and Boxing Day happen over a weekend, the subsequent Monday and Tuesday would then be days off.
If passed, these changes would go into effect on 1 January 2014.
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