Daylight saving time in Europe

All countries in Europe except Belarus, Iceland, and Russia observe daylight saving time, and all that do so change on the same date and time, starting on the last Sunday in March and ending on the last Sunday in October.

History

Before 1996, DST ended on the last Sunday in September in most European countries; however in the United Kingdom and Ireland DST ended on the fourth (which some years is not the last) Sunday in October.

In 1996, daylight saving time was harmonized throughout the European Union by Directive 2000/84/EC, which moved the end of DST to the last Sunday in October.

In the West European (UTC), Central European (CET, UTC+1), and East European (UTC+2) time zones the change is simultaneous: on both dates the clocks are changed everywhere at 01:00 UTC, i.e. from local times of 01:00/02:00/03:00 to 02:00/03:00/04:00 in March, and vice versa in October.^[1]

See also: European Summer Time and British Summer Time which includes a description of Double Summer Time.

These countries or regions do not use daylight saving time:

• Belarus, ended its last DST switching after moving the clocks forward in Spring 2011, and is now observing UTC+03:00 all year round.
• Iceland, observing UTC all year round despite being at a longitude which would indicate UTC-1, the country may be thought of as being on continuous DST. Iceland's high latitude means that sunset and sunrise times change by many hours over the year, and the effect of changing the clock by one hour would, in comparison, be small.
• Russia, ended its last DST switching after moving the clocks forward in Spring 2011, and is now observing the time that formerly was DST, all year round. Many areas have its time two hours ahead of the mean solar time. Moscow has UTC+04:00.

Double Summer Time

There has been observation of double summer time:

• Central European Midsummer Time (UTC+03:00)
• British Double Summer Time (UTC+02:00)

See also

• European Summer Time
  • Western European Summer Time
  • Central European Summer Time
  • Eastern European Summer Time
• British Summer Time
• Irish Standard Time

References

1. ^ "Directive 2000/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 January 2001 on summer-time arrangements". eur-lex.europa.eu. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0084:EN:NOT. Retrieved 2010-09-26. 

See also

• European Summer Time
• Daylight saving time by country
• Daylight saving time in Oceania
• Daylight saving time in Asia
• Daylight saving time in Africa
• Daylight saving time in North America
• Daylight saving time in South America