Summer times ends on Sunday, October; 29, don’t forget to change your clocks

Summer time will end at 4.00 am on Sunday October 29, the last Sunday of the month as watches and clocks will be moved back by one hour as winter time comes into effect in Cyprus and most European countries.

The change will take effect throughout the European Union and this means an extra hour in bed.

Daylight saving time will begin on March 31, 2024, at 03:00, by moving the clocks forward 1 hour.

On March 26, 2019, the European Parliament voted in favour of backing the EU Committee draft directive to stop the one-hour clock change in the European Union.

Under the directive, each Member State had until April 2020 to decide whether to remain permanently on “summer time” or to change their clocks back one final time to permanent standard time, also known as “winter time.”

In addition to the reactions the resolution had caused, several member states did not agree as there was not enough analysis of the impact of the proposal. Eventually, an opinion was sought from the Legal Service of the European Council and there has been no progress since then.

Under a European Commission proposal adopted in September 2019 and backed by the European Parliament, the European Union plans to stop clock changes in 2021.

EU law has required all countries in the bloc to observe daylight saving time, moving clocks forward by an hour on the last Sunday of March and back by an hour on the final Sunday in October.

Under the new law, every member state will have the right to choose whether to continue with the daylight saving time throughout the year or keep standard time.

The practice of switching the clocks, also observed in countries such as the United States, was first introduced in World War One to save energy by prolonging evening daylight in summer.

The European Commission proposed in September ending the practice after an EU-wide opinion survey showed a large majority in favour of doing so. 

The survey generated 4.6 million responses, with 84 percent of respondents wanting to end seasonal clock changes.

A European Parliament report in favour of operating on a single time throughout the year said scientific studies link time changes to diseases of the cardiovascular or immune systems because they interrupt biological cycles, and that there were no longer any energy savings.