All clocks are set forward one hour on Sunday night. The EU wanted to abolish the time change for a long time. But nothing happened.
On Sunday, at two o’clock in the morning, the time has come – the hands move forward by one hour in Europe, so we “lost” an hour of time that we were “gifted” with in the fall. The EU introduced this change in 1980. Since then, watches have been changed twice a year. The current daylight savings time ends on Sunday, October 29th.
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At that time, the idea behind the introduction of Daylight Saving Time was to use daylight longer and thus save energy in the summer months. However, because the heat was simply turned on earlier and the light turned on earlier, the actual energy consumption barely dropped.
And because many people also find the time change stressful and sometimes even develop health problems – the main consequences are sleep disturbances, tiredness or lack of concentration – the current regime with winter and summer time does not have many supporters: In a poll in 2018 , they spoke out According to Gmx.ch, more than 80% of the 4.6 million participants voted for the abolition of the time change.
Different interests and pandemic prevent abolition
EU member states met several times on the subject of the time change and agreed the same year to want to abolish it again. However, individual countries could not agree on all the details.
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It was controversial, for example, whether winter or summer should always prevail in the future – depending on the situation in Europe, the two times have different advantages and disadvantages. In countries further east of the EU there would be light very early in the summer months if winter were permanent. In the west, permanent daylight saving time would mean that the sun would not rise until very late in winter.
However, according to the will of the EU, the transition must disappear by 2021. The member states should have agreed on this: a patchwork of different periods must be avoided at all costs.
But then the pandemic came and threw all efforts overboard. The war in Ukraine also ensured that other matters were on the EU’s agenda – and that Daylight Saving Time would likely be “preserved” for a few more years.
Navigation account 20 minutes Time25.03.2023, 18:15| Act: 03/25/2023, 6:15 pm