Prague, March 22 (CTK) – Clocks will go one hour forward at 02:00 on Sunday, March 25, as the Czech Republic will switch to Central European Summer Time (CEST) that will last until October 28.
Summer time was introduced in the Czech Lands during World War One in 1915 and 1916. After a pause, it was in force in 1940-1949 again and was definitively resumed in 1979.
Until 1995, summer time lasted six months in the Czech Republic. In 1996, the country joined the EU practice and extended it to seven months.
In 2016, the Czech cabinet decided through a directive that summer time will continue to be annually introduced until 2021 at least.
The switching to summer time will delay some night trains by one hour on Sunday.
The original motive for applying summer time was to use daylight more effectively. But even energy experts admit that the alternation of summer and winter time does not help save energy and that weather influences energy consumption much more.
The summer time’s opponents argue that it saves no money but the time switches negatively affect people’s health and cause public transport delays.
In February, the time changing was challenged in European Parliament by a group of 80 MEPs led by Czech Christian Democrat (KDU-CSL) Pavel Svoboda (EPP), who heads the EP’s legal committee. The EP subsequently called on the European Commission to assess the system’s pros and cons and possibly propose its abolition.
