Proposal by the European Commission to end the biannual clock change

LVM070:00/2018 Development

On 12 September 2018, the Commission proposed to end seasonal clock changes in Europe in 2019. According to the Commission's proposal, Member States will decide whether they want to maintain permanent winter- or summer-time.

Clocks are changed in all EU Member States at the same time on the same date. The days are always the last Sunday of March and October.

Project status

26.1.2018 Term starts
22.10. – 7.11.2018 Lausuntokierros kellojen siirtelystä Completed
31.12.2024 Term ends

Basic information In progress

Project number LVM070:00/2018

Case numbers LVM/443/04/2018 , VN/11870/2019

Set by Ministry of Transport and Communications

Term/schedule 26.1.2018 – 31.12.2024

Date of appointment 26.1.2018

Goals and results

The European Commission has proposed that the practice of daylight saving time be ended from the beginning of 2019. According to the proposal, the bi-annual clock changes would be abandoned throughout Europe.

The Commission's proposal leaves Member States the freedom to decide their standard time. After the decision has been made, they will not be able to switch the time according to seasons. However, Member States will still decide themselves which time zone they want to apply.

Permanent summer-time or winter-time: Framework for impact assessment

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a Time System Impacts Excel tool that is a simple framework to assess and compare the potential impacts of different alternative time systems. The framework is made to support further discussion and comparison with easy to use Excel tool, guiding to ask the relevant questions regarding impacts.

First stage is to identify how the scenarios influence the daylight hours, especially during active hours. Second stage is to identify how implementing scenarios would relate to the potential impacts.

The tool can be found below (Documents: Publications and reports).

Summary

On 12 September 2018, the Commission proposed to end seasonal clock changes in Europe in 2019. According to the Commission's proposal, Member States will decide whether they want to maintain permanent winter- or summer-time.

Clocks are changed in all EU Member States at the same time on the same date. The days are always the last Sunday of March and October.

Starting points

In Finland, the removal of the daylight saving time is based on citizens’ initiative that was introduced to Parliament for discussion in spring 2017. After that, on 15 November 2017, the former Minister of Transport and Communications Anne Berner sent a letter on the daylight saving time to European Commissioner Violeta Bulc. The letter explained the situation in Finland and asked about the Commission’s plans for summer time. On Finland’s initiative, the matter has also been actively brought up at the Council of the European Union.

Additional information

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