Clock advances 1 hour as summer time begins Sunday

Summer time started early Sunday when the clock advanced by one hour at 3:00 o’clock.

Meanwhile, the tradition of daylight-saving time is scheduled to be scrapped this year as the members of the European Parliament in March 2019 decided to scrap daylight-saving time to keep standard time year round.

The proposal is still awaiting consideration by the Council of the EU, for the issue shall be decided jointly by the EU Council and the EU parliament.

The debate on daylight-saving time has been delayed, partly because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the issue has not been on the agenda during the Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council this spring, said the Ministry of Transport and Communications in a press release.

The EU member states would remain free to decide nationally which time they want to adopt on a permanent basis.

Of the member states, Finland has advocated abandoning seasonal time changes most actively.

People, businesses, and other stakeholders were widely consulted in Finland to facilitate national decision-making. The results showed that many were in favour of abandoning clock changes. While both the summer and the winter time were supported fairly evenly, with the winter time gaining slightly more popularity.

Finland does not currently have a formal final position on the choice of permanent year-round time. Finland underlines the importance of avoiding fragmentation of time zones.

The initially target schedule for the EU Commission’s proposal has not been met. In spring 2019, the European Parliament voted in favour of ending seasonal time changes. At the time, it proposed that clocks would be changed in 2021 for the last time.

Timing complications may arise in different sectors, especially in public transport and communication.

The authorities, however, expect that everything will be normal once people become accustomed to the new timing in a few days’ time.

There will be some changes in the timetables of bus and train services.

Timetable of local buses could be asked from the operators, while timetables for long-distance buses will be found on Matkahuolto’s web page.

The summer time-shifting for long-distance buses will mainly affect Helsinki-Vantaa airport express bus connection.

The schedule for the intercity and long-distance bus services will be available on the websites.

The train service schedules will also see some changes.

Summer time generally starts on the last Sunday of March and continues until the last Sunday of October.

Finland has been following separate time schedules for summer and winter since 1981.