Why has the EU still not abolished daylight saving time?
The short answer: the Council of the EU cannot agree. The European Commission published its proposal in September 2018. The European Parliament voted in favour on 26 March 2019. Then the file landed in the Council, the body that represents member-state governments. It has sat there ever since.
Under EU rules, a directive on time harmonisation needs unanimity in the Council. Every single member state must say yes to the same outcome. They have not. Some want enduring summer time. Some want fixed winter time. A few want the whole question to go away. The Council’s working group on time has discussed the file multiple times. No consensus has emerged. The Swedish, Czech and Spanish presidencies all listed it as pending. None scheduled a substantive debate. The Hungarian presidency, starting July 2026, has not signalled it will either.
The European Parliament has passed non-binding resolutions urging the Council to act. The Council has ignored them. The Commission’s current mandate runs until 2029. The file is not on its active agenda. After the 2029 Parliament elections, the Parliament’s position lapses. The default wins.
The 2018 consultation that started it all
The push to end clock changes began with a European Commission public consultation in mid-2018. It drew 4.6 million responses, the largest in EU history. Of those, 84% favoured abolition.
The numbers came with a heavy skew. Germany alone accounted for roughly 70% of replies. The consultation was online, self-selected and not representative of the EU population. The Commission’s own analysis acknowledged the imbalance. Critics noted the leading question invited a negative answer.
Despite the caveats, then-Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the European Parliament in September 2018: “The people want it, and we should deliver.” The Commission published its legislative proposal that month. The Parliament voted the following March.
The 2019 Parliament vote: what it actually decided
The European Parliament approved the Commission’s proposal by a wide margin. The resolution said seasonal clock changes should end in 2021. Each member state would decide whether to adopt enduring summer time or fixed winter time.
The Parliament added a non-binding request: member states should coordinate their choices to avoid a patchwork of time zones across the single market. Countries sharing a land border should inform each other of their decisions. The Commission should publish an impact assessment of divergent choices.
The vote was a signal, not a command. The Parliament cannot force the Council to act. The Council has no obligation to respond within any deadline. The proposal entered the legislative machinery and stopped.
Enduring summer or fixed winter: the split no one can fix
The core dispute is geographic. Europe’s three standard time zones span from Iceland to Bulgaria. Within that span, the same clock time means radically different things.
Enduring summer time means later sunrises and later sunsets. In Helsinki, the June sun would set after 23:00. Fixed winter time means earlier sunrises and earlier sunsets. In Berlin, the June sun would rise before 05:00 and the December sun would set before 16:00.
Northern countries tend to value long winter evenings. Southern countries already have dark winter mornings and long summer evenings. A single EU-wide decision would force one region to accept the other’s preference. No government wants to be the one that made the sun rise late in December or set before 16:00.
Will Europe abolish daylight saving time? Where governments stand
No member state has submitted a formal position to the Council, because the Council has never asked. But signals from national governments and parliaments are consistent.
Prefer enduring summer time: France, Denmark, Finland, Poland, the Baltic states and Portugal. Portugal has repeatedly said it wants to stay aligned with London but would accept summer time if forced.
Prefer fixed winter time: Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus.
Undecided or no strong preference: Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Ireland and Czechia. These governments have signalled they would accept either option if it meant a harmonised solution.
The UK, outside the EU since 2020, has no plans to abolish DST. The government has said any change would require a full public consultation. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member. If the EU adopted enduring summer time and the UK did not, that border would become a time-zone boundary.
The patchwork risk that terrifies policymakers
The single biggest fear is a fragmented time-zone map. If each member state chose independently, neighbours could diverge. France picks enduring summer time. Germany picks fixed winter time. Paris is suddenly one hour ahead of Berlin in winter. A worker in Strasbourg and a worker in Kehl, across the Rhine, would cross a one-hour time difference on their daily commute.
The same logic applies to every EU border. Transport operators, broadcasters and financial markets would recalculate schedules twice a year. The single market depends on predictable time differences. The Commission’s 2018 impact assessment acknowledged the risk and estimated the economic cost of a patchwork could be significant, though no binding figure was agreed.
European nations that already ditched the clock change
Several countries have already made their own choices while the EU debates.
Russia moved to enduring summer time in 2011. Public complaints about dark winter mornings followed. In 2014, Russia reverted to fixed standard time. Moscow sits at UTC+3. The country has not observed DST since.
Belarus followed Russia to enduring summer time in 2011 and never reverted. It stays on UTC+3 year-round, one hour ahead of its geographic longitude. Minsk is at roughly 27°E, which would align with UTC+2.
Turkey abandoned DST in 2016, staying on UTC+3 year-round for energy and business reasons. The country’s clocks are one hour ahead of their geographic longitude in winter.
Iceland has not observed DST since 1968. It uses UTC+0 year-round despite sitting at roughly 22°W, which would be UTC-2 solar time.
These examples show leaving DST is possible. Russia’s failed experiment with enduring summer time is a warning about dark mornings.
What the UK, Norway and Switzerland will do
The EU’s decision, or lack of one, affects non-EU European nations differently.
The United Kingdom has no plans to change. The government has not committed to a review. The Northern Ireland border with the Republic of Ireland remains the complicating factor.
Norway, an EEA member bound by the single market rules including the DST directive, has said it will follow the EU’s decision if one is reached. It has no independent proposal to abolish DST.
Switzerland, not in the EEA, has chosen to align its time rules with the EU’s and would likely follow any EU decision. It has no standalone plan.
When Europe next changes its clocks and what comes after
The next switch is Sunday 29 March 2026. Clocks go forward one hour at 01:00 UTC. That means 02:00 in most of Europe and 03:00 in Eastern European countries.
The autumn switch is Sunday 25 October 2026. Clocks go back one hour at 01:00 UTC.
After that: Sunday 28 March 2027 forward, Sunday 31 October 2027 back.
Beyond those dates, there is no timeline. The proposal is stalled indefinitely. The EU has no mechanism to force the Council to act. No member state has an interest in reviving a file that divides the continent. The status quo, seasonal clock changes twice a year across the EU and its neighbours, is the default. The default is what will happen.