From Sunday, standard time returns to Switzerland

From 3 am on Sundat, standard time will once again be in force in Switzerland and most European countries. Clocks will be set back by one hour.

Night owls will therefore have an extra hour to go out on the night from Saturday to Sunday.

In Europe, summer time was first introduced in 1973 against the backdrop of the oil crisis. This time change was intended to provide businesses and households with an extra hour of daylight, with the aim of saving energy. To avoid becoming a ‘time island’, Switzerland followed suit in 1981.

According to the Federal Institute of Metrology (Metas), the term ‘winter time’ is a misnomer in everyday language. There is only summer time and standard time.

With standard time, it gets dark earlier in the evening once again. Daylight saving time has been in place in Switzerland since 1981. “Winter time” will end on the last Sunday in March next year. On 28 March 2027, the clocks will be put forward by one hour to switch to summer time.

Criticism of permanent summer time

According to opinion polls, many people would prefer not to switch back to standard time in the autumn. They would favour permanent summer time. Researchers recently outlined the consequences of such a change in the specialist journal *Canadian Medical Association Journal*.

The team led by Raymond Lam, from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, first analysed numerous scientific studies. This analysis followed on from several regions across the country examining the possibility of abolishing the switch to summer time.

Lam’s team noted that the leading associations specialising in sleep and chronobiology (the study of biological rhythms and the temporal organisation of living beings) recommend adopting permanent summer time should the clock change be abolished. According to these organisations, morning light helps to synchronise the biological clock with the 24-hour day, whilst evening light causes it to run behind.

The authors of the study argue, however, that permanent summer time would have the disadvantage, in winter, that journeys to school or work, as well as the start of the day’s main activities, would generally take place for longer in the dark.

Permanent summer time would therefore be particularly harmful to the health of people suffering from winter depression, a manifestation of seasonal affective disorder.

Examples from around the world

In their analysis, the authors also drew on the experiences of other countries. The United States had already introduced permanent summer time during the 1974 energy crisis, but abolished it less than a year later.

Russia also abandoned permanent summer time in 2014, having introduced it in 2011, and Chile followed suit, having also scrapped a similar measure introduced in 2015.

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Translated from French, reviewed by an English Department journalist.