EUROPEAN UNION TO END DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME
The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers have voted to end the use of daylight saving time or summer time in the European Union, however, as of December 2023 the proposal has not been confirmed by the European Union and is unlikely to go into effect in 2024.
The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers previously voted to end the use of daylight saving time or summer time in the European Union in 2021. Under the proposal Member States will have until April 2020 to choose the observation of summer time or winter time year round. On Sunday March 28, 2021 each Member State will observe daylight saving time as previously scheduled. At the end of the scheduled daylight saving time period on Sunday October 31, 2021 Member States that have chosen to remain on summer time year round will not change their clocks. Member States that have chosen to remain on winter time year round will turn their clocks back one hour one last time.
BACKGROUND: The European Commission officially proposed to end the use of daylight saving time or summer time in the European Union. In the summer of 2018 the Commission opened a public consultation on the issue and received 4.6 million responses. The public consultation was created as a result of pressure from the European Parliament, Member States, businesses and citizens. The resulting response of the public consultation was 84% in favor of ending daylight saving time.
As a result of the responses to the official public consultation in favor of ending daylight saving time the European Commission determined it would be best to allow Member States to individually choose to observe summer time or winter time year round. This would essentially have the effect of determining which standard time zone to observe on a year round basis. The proposal of the European Commission was put to the European Parliament and Council for a final decision.
The European Commission's proposal was considered by the European Parliament's Transport and Tourism Committee which voted on March 4, 2019 to approve the proposal with an implementation date of 2021 instead of 2019. To become law the plan required approval by the full European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Debate on the change occurred on Monday March 25 and a vote to approve the proposal occurred on Tuesday March 26, 2019.
PREVIOUSLY: If the European Parliament had approved the measure as originally proposed by The European Commission the Member States would have had until April 2019 to choose the observation of summer time or winter time year round. On Sunday March 31, 2019 each Member State would observe daylight saving time as previously scheduled. At the end of the previously scheduled daylight saving time period on Sunday October 27, 2019 Member States that had chosen to remain on summer time year round would not change their clocks. Member States that had chosen to remain on winter time year round would turn their clocks back one hour one last time.
Official Press Release of the European Parliament are found here:
March 26, 2021 - Transport MEPs urge to end clock change
March 26, 2019 - Parliament backs proposal to end switch between summer and winter time in 2021
March 21, 2019 - Parliament to vote on ending switch between summer and winter time. Vote scheduled for March 26, 2019.
March 4, 2019 -
Could switching between summer and winter time end in 2021?
Official Press Releases by the European Commission are found here:
September 12, 2018 - State of the Union 2018: Commission proposes to put an end to seasonal clock changes
September 12, 2018 - State of the Union 2018: Q&A on the Commission's proposal to put an end to seasonal clock changes
August 31, 2018 - Summertime Consultation: 84% want Europe to stop changing the clock
July 4, 2018 - August 16, 2018 - Official Information on the Public Consultation regarding summertime arrangements including information about the consultation, responses, target group, objectives, how to submit a response, the questionnaire and additional information.
Official Fact Sheets and Legal Text - State of the Union 2018 - Ending seasonal clock changes
Europe Time Zone Map
