What is the time change?

What is the time change?

What is the time change?

What is the time change? Daylight Saving Time ( DST ) or the change from summer time to winter time (and vice versa) is a convention. For it, clocks are advanced one hour in spring to take more advantage of daylight.

Also for her, in autumn they are late again. It thus returns to what would be its “standard” state. But not all countries in the world follow this convention. Some have gone through DST but stopped doing it, while others have never used it.

Fundamentally, DST is followed in most of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, throughout the European Union and in other European countries, in countries such as Morocco, Mongolia, Turkey, or Israel, in the northern hemisphere.

In the southern hemisphere, it is used in Chile, Paraguay, and some areas of Brazil. It is also used in some areas of Australia. Recently, Namibia has stopped following him. In the past, this system was followed by many other countries that have progressively abandoned it.

In Europe, changing the time in spring and autumn is already customary, except in Belarus and the European part of Russia.

Time change in the European Union

The European Union (EU) has been changing the time uniquely and throughout its territory since 1996, although the first directive on the matter came into force in 1981. But in March 2019 the European Parliament decided to vote in favor of the European Commission’s initiative to stop changing the time twice every year. The objective is that in 2021 each State decides if it wants to stay the whole year with summer or winter time.

The proposal came after the results of a non-binding consultation carried out throughout the EU territory on this measure were made public. According to that survey, in which five million EU citizens participated, 80% want to put an end to this practice. The reasons for those who criticize the time change are already known:

EU time zones

There are currently three time zones in the European Union. The Greenwich meridian marks the GMT time followed by the United Kingdom, Portugal, and the Canary Islands. The vast majority of central Europe, including Spain, is one hour ahead and is known as CET (Central Europe Time) while more eastern countries such as Greece or Finland are two hours ahead of GMT.

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