Daylight saving time begins this Sunday in Europe

For the next seven months, residents of European countries will live under daylight saving time. The change begins at dawn on Sunday (27), the last weekend of March, when it will be necessary to advance the hours by one hour. However, to ensure that all sites perform the switching at the same time, the exact time of the switch varies depending on the time zone of the country.

For residents of places located in the time zone of Portugal, Ireland and the United Kingdom (GMT *), when the clock strikes 1 am, it must be moved forward until 2 am. Countries at the same time as Germany, Spain and Italy (GMT+1) must make the change at 2 am, and switch to 3 am. At the same time, in Greece and Bulgaria (GMT + 2), the clock moves from 3 am to 4 am. Digital devices, in most cases, make the switch automatically.

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This procedure was introduced in Europe in the last century with the aim of saving electricity, prolonging the period with light during the day. Legislation that standardizes schedules of time changes in countries, however, was only created by the European Union (EU) in the 1980s, thus preventing each location from making the change on different days and times. Even with Brexit, the UK kept the start date for the same bloc countries. Daylight saving time ends on the last Sunday in October, the 30th.

The end of the adoption of daylight saving time in the European Union has been a topic that has been widely discussed in recent years by the bloc’s nations. In 2019, the European Commission put forward a proposal to end the switch, leaving member states free to set the standard time. Among the factors considered, a public consultation received 4.6 million responses, with 84% of people in favor of changing the end of time. The final decision must be made by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, but with the pandemic spreading, the topic is not yet on the agenda.

GMT: At 1 am, the clock should be brought forward to 2 am.
Ireland, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

GMT +1: At 2 a.m., the clock should be brought forward to 3 a.m.
Germany, Belgium, Spain – France, Hungary, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, plus nine other countries.

GMT +2: At 3 a.m., the clock should be brought forward to 4 a.m.
Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania.