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The time to switch to the Daylight Saving Time has come round again. At 2am on Sunday 30 March, the clocks will go forward one hour, marking 3am instead. As the days have started to grow, this change will make sunlight extend to even more into the evening. The sun will rise and set later.
Daylight Saving Time will be in effect until the last Sunday of October, when the change to winter time will take place.
For those who like a good lie-in on Sunday, this announcement always comes as unwelcome news. Although some doubt its effectiveness, what justifies the time change is the goal to save energy. The regulation seeks to synchronise daylight hours with the working day in order to reduce electricity consumption, both in Spain and in the rest of the EU countries.
While the discussion on its usefulness continues, Spain's BOE official state gazette only sets the dates for the time changes until 2026, without having officially established if the change will be applicable in 2027.
Clock changes according to BOE until 2026:
Summer timetable
2025: Sunday, 30 March
2026: Sunday, 29 March
Winter timetable
2025: Sunday, 26 October
2026: Sunday, 25 October
A couple of years ago Spain's BOE (official state gazette) published the beginning and end of the summer and winter time periods until 2026. In this way, Spain confirmed that the time change will be maintained despite some opposition from the ARHOE-Comisión Nacional para la Racionalización de Horarios Españoles (national commission for the rationalisation of Spanish timetables), which rejects this measure mainly because of its repercussions on health and people.
On 7 September 2018, a commission of experts was set up to study the reform of the official time, with the task of drawing up an evaluation report on the provisions governing the time changeover and on the advisability of maintaining Central European Time in Spain.
In its report, dated 20 March 2019, the commission concluded, on the one hand, that it was not advisable to bring about any hasty change in time zones until there was a shared consensus and a practical spread to citizens of the risks.
Why it was not approved
In February 2018, at Finland's proposal, the European parliament voted on the possibility of ending the time change. Despite receiving 384 votes against and only 153 in favour, the European parliament pledged to study the feasibility of the time change and opened a public consultation, in which more than 80% of the 4.6 million citizens who took part were in favour of ending time changes.
The main elements of the proposal that reached Europe were the abolition of biannual time changes in all EU countries and that EU countries wishing to change their official time should use a notification system. Before the pandemic, the presidency provided information on the state of play of the commission's proposal on seasonal time change. The presidency has developed a tool to assess the amount of daylight in three different scenarios. However, the council has not yet reached a common position on this issue. A qualified majority of member states is needed to constitute the council's position.
The European parliament adopted its position on the proposal in March 2019: it voted in favour of abolishing summer and winter timetables in 2021.The council and the European parliament have to reach an agreement in order to adopt the necessary legislative act to abolish the seasonal time change. And as long as they do not agree and this decision is not taken, the time change remains blocked year after year, season after season.
The three timetables in Europe
Member States in Europe are free to decide which time zone they wish to be in. There are currently three official time zones in the EU:
- Western European Time: Ireland, Portugal and the United Kingdom
- Central European Time: 17 Member States in its geographical area, including Spain (except the Canary Islands, which keeps Western European Time).
- Eastern European Time: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.
Why the time is changed
In Europe, changing the time in spring and autumn is a custom that existed before the European Union. It was first introduced during the First World War, to save energy, and was reintroduced in many countries in the 1970s. The first EU legislation on summer and winter time dates back to 1980: a directive coordinating the methods in force in various countries to help ensure the smooth functioning of the single market.
The current directive entered into force in 2001. Under its provisions, all member states switch to summer time on the last Sunday in March and return to their official time (winter time) on the last Sunday in October.
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