Time Change 2025: Could This Be One of the Last Clock Adjustments in Europe?
The time change for 2025 is fast approaching—this March, we will once again move our clocks forward. While many Poles are tired of adjusting their clocks twice a year, EU regulations on daylight saving time and standard time are still in effect. Poland’s Ministry of Development and Technology is actively negotiating within the European Union, and experts are debating whether this year’s switch to daylight saving time might be one of the last. Could Europe finally say goodbye to clock changes?
Ending the practice of switching between daylight saving time and standard time has been placed on the agenda of Poland’s EU presidency. In late December 2024, Minister of Development and Technology Krzysztof Paszyk confirmed this, stating, “We recognize this as an important social and economic issue.” Work on repealing Directive 2000/84/EC, which was intended to eliminate seasonal time changes within the EU, began in 2018 but has yet to be completed. The minister is pushing to bring the discussion back to the EU forum.
Poland assumed the EU presidency on January 1 and has six months to push this initiative forward—meaning only four months remain. So, what progress has been made so far? It turns out that the Minister of Development has already taken the first steps. “As announced, the Ministry of Development and Technology, as part of Poland’s ongoing presidency in the EU Council, has initiated actions to break the deadlock and give new momentum to negotiations on ending seasonal time changes,” the ministry told Fakt.
According to the minister’s press office, Krzysztof Paszyk has already discussed the resumption of negotiations on the directive with the EU Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, during a meeting between the College of Commissioners and the Council of Ministers in Gdańsk. “He convinced the commissioner not to remove the directive from the European Commission’s work program for 2025. We are working together with the commissioner’s office and the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (MOVE) on further actions in this area,” the ministry added.
