European Summer Time - History

History

Summer Time was introduced first during the First World War. However, most countries discontinued the practice after the war. It was then re-started in various countries during the Second World War and its immediate after-math. Again it was widely cancelled by the 1950s, although re-introduced in isolated cases until the late 1960s when the energy crisis began to prompt policy makers to re-introduce the policy across the continent. It has remained in place in most European countries since that time.

Historically the countries of Europe had different practices for observing summer time, but this hindered coordination of transport, communications and movements. Starting in 1981 the European Community began issuing directives requiring member states to legislate particular start and end dates for summer-time.

Since 1981 each directive has specified a transition time of 01:00 UTC and a start date of the last Sunday in March, but the end dates have differed. Successive Directives laid down two dates for the end: one on the last Sunday in September applied by the continental Member States, and the other on the fourth Sunday in October for the United Kingdom and Ireland. In 1996 the end date was changed to the fourth Sunday in October for all countries. In 1998 the end date was adjusted to be the last Sunday in October; this happened to be the same as the previous rule for 1996 and 1997. The ninth directive, currently in force, has made this permanent.