Austria is heading back to winter time

On the night of October 26, clocks in Austria and other EU member states will be set back by one hour. At 3:00 AM, daylight saving time ends and is replaced by standard time, which is also commonly referred to as winter time. Although the European Parliament decided to abolish the time change in 2019, the plan has not yet been implemented. Rather, an end to the practice of changing the clocks is not in sight.

For this to happen, a qualified majority of EU member countries would need to decide in favor of it. However, since the interests and intentions of the nations differ significantly on this issue, there is no progress towards the abolition of daylight saving time. Currently, the topic is not being worked on, said the responsible spokesperson of the European Council in response to an APA inquiry. The time change was last briefly mentioned at the level of the European Council in the first half of 2025, "but no concrete steps were taken," the spokesperson said.

Last October Weekend Brings Winter Time

As long as there is no new regulation regarding the time change at the EU level, it will simply continue - on the last weekend of March each year, the clocks are set forward to daylight saving time, and on the last weekend of October, they are set back again. Given the current political situation, it is "likely that it will continue this way," said the spokesperson.

Daylight saving time was introduced in Europe in 1973 in response to the oil crisis and with the aim of saving energy. The time shift was intended to gain an hour of daylight for businesses and households. France was the first to implement it at that time.

Austria decided to introduce it only in 1979 due to administrative problems and because it wanted to achieve traffic harmonization with Switzerland and Germany. These two countries only introduced daylight saving time in 1980. However, the Alpine republic had already experienced daylight saving time once during World War I. In 1916, it was in effect for the monarchy from May 1 to September 30, but was then discontinued. A second - ultimately unsuccessful - attempt was made from 1940 to 1948.

(APA/Red)

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