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The clock tower of the Martin Luther Church in Schönhagen, Lower Saxony (archive picture): Winter time has been in effect again in Germany since Sunday;
the clocks are put back one hour.
Photo: Swen Pförtner / dpa
In Germany, normal time applies again: On Sunday at 3 a.m., the clocks were put back by one hour: from the previous summer time (CEST) to Central European Time (CET).
The night became an hour longer.
With the time change, it is now light earlier in the morning and darker in the evening.
Summer time was introduced in Germany in 1980.
Bringing the clock forward in spring should help to save energy during the bright season, the effects are de facto limited.
In addition, the change between summer and winter time creates health problems for some people.
Many people are therefore calling for an end to the time change.
However, it is not yet foreseeable when the European Union will implement such plans.
This is because the member states have not yet been able to agree on a common approach.
The interests of the individual nations are very different.
Without summer time, it would be light at 3:00 a.m. in the summer in eastern EU countries such as Poland. With permanent summer time, however, the sun would rise very late in winter in the west: in Spain's capital Madrid, for example, only after 9:30 a.m.
The time change avoids such extremes.
In April, the Brussels Commission set the dates for summer and winter time up to and including 2026 in the EU Official Journal.
che / AFP
