The Czech Republic, together with almost the whole of the European Union, will return to the standard Central European Time (CET) this weekend, when the clocks move back 60 minutes from 3 am CEST to 2 am CET on Sunday, 27 October.
The astronomical time CET will be applied for another five months until the last Sunday in March, 2025, when it is again replaced with Central European Summer Time (CEST).
The weekend time switch will affect some Czech Railways night trains, which will wait at a suitable station for one hour.
According to the European Commission’s plan, compulsory time changes were due to end across the EU in 2022. However, member states have not yet agreed on which time will be applied permanently.
Summer time, originally meant to contribute to energy saving, was first introduced in the Czech Lands in 1915, during World War I, and repeated the following year before being scrapped. The Nazis reintroduced summer time in the occupied Czech Lands in 1940, and it was retained after the end of the war until 1949 when the Communists abolished it.
Summer time was reintroduced in Czechoslovakia in November 1979 and has been observed since then. In 1996, the summer time regime was extended from six to seven months under an EU directive.
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The regular changing of time has provoked debates on whether it is effective and safe from a medical point of view. Opponents of the time switch claim that it is harmful for human health, as it disturbs people’s natural biorhythm. Moreover, experts point out that this change no longer brings any significant energy savings.
A STEM/MARK survey from last October shows that two-thirds of Czechs disapprove of the regular time switch. The most frequent objections concerned the impact on health and psychological well-being. However, there was no clear consensus among respondents on which time would be better to keep year-round. Summer time was preferred by 40%, while 31% would choose CET and the rest had no clear preference.