Daylight saving time lasts until the last weekend in October, i.e. the night between October 28 and 29. The motive behind the introduction of "summer time" in the SFRY on March 27, 1983 was the "extended" duration of daycare, that is, lower consumption of electricity and increased productivity.
However, the aforementioned benefits have not been proven to date, and it has been announced for years that daylight saving time will be abolished. A few years ago, the European Commission made a decision to abolish the time change, which was also confirmed by the European Parliament, but it has not yet happened.
Germany is to blame
Daylight saving time was first introduced in the German Empire and Austria-Hungary on April 30, 1916, during World War I, to make the day seem longer and thus save coal used for lighting.
Many countries on the opposing side, including Great Britain and France, have also introduced Daylight Savings Time. Germany abolished this popularly unpopular measure during the Weimar Republic in 1919.
Great Britain was the last country between the two wars to adhere to the double counting time, and France abolished it after farmers' protests in 1922, then reintroduced it in 1923. Other countries experimented with changing the weather for a short period of time.
When the Second World War began, Germany again, for the same reasons, introduced daylight saving time in 1940, so the time calculation in all occupied countries was adapted to it.
The oil crisis and daylight saving time
The oil crisis of 1973 had a violent impact on Europe, which fell into recession due to high energy prices and was forced to save. However, only France introduced summer time in 1976 for this reason. For other members of the European Community, the motive for re-introducing summer time was the harmonization of the common market.
The southernmost Central European country to join daylight saving time was Switzerland in 1981, and by 1996 the time calculation within the European Union was harmonized.
Changing the clock and summer time in Serbia, i.e. to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was introduced on March 27, 1983, in accordance with the decision of the European Community (EC).
The Ministry of Economy of Serbia explains that the law in our country is being harmonized with the regulations of the European Union (EU), announcing that the Republic of Serbia will monitor every change. The Law on Time Calculation is important because it regulates the establishment of a uniform time throughout the territory of the Republic of Serbia, according to the Ministry of Economy.
Discussions on ending daylight saving time failed
In Russia, a country that spans 11 time zones, Vladimir Putin was the first to make the decision to abolish daylight saving time in 2014, thereby encouraging the rest of the world to start thinking in that direction.
In the summer of 2018, the European Commission officially opened a public debate on this issue and received 4,6 million responses. According to the writings of the European media at the time, that public discussion was the result of pressure from the European Parliament, member states, companies and citizens. The result of the public consultation was that 84 percent of them said that summer time should be abolished.
During March 2019, the European Parliament voted to abolish the biannual time change next year, in 2020, and member states were given until April 2020 to declare whether they will use summer or winter time.
The plan was for countries that chose to remain on daylight saving time to stop moving their clocks after that, while those that chose winter time would move their hands one more time on October 31, 2020, after which they would end the practice.
In March 2020, the corona virus pandemic was declared, strict epidemiological measures were introduced in most European countries, and the declaration of this issue was not imposed as one of the priorities. To date, the decision on whether to use summer or winter time, or whether everything will remain as it is, has not been made.
Countries that no longer practice seasonal clocks are Iceland, Belarus, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Turkey, as well as the two American states of Arizona and Hawaii and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Yukon.
MN/FoNet
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