Don’t forget to change your clocks this Sunday
Belgium will switch to winter time during the night of Saturday to Sunday. In other words, this Sunday, October 29 at 3:00 am, we will back one hour, so it will be 02:00. Winter time will be effective until the weekend of March 24, 2018.
Why do we have daylight saving time?
Germany was the first country to adopt the system during the First World War, with the goal to minimize the use of artificial lighting and save fuel. The change of time was introduced in Belgium in the 1970s in order to limit the consumption of artificial lighting and therefore to save energy. Indeed, in winter we enjoy an hour of extra light early in the day.
In Belgium, since 1996, this change of time applies at 03:00 in the morning because it corresponds to the lowest period of economic activity.
In Europe, it has been harmonized since 1998 for all the Member States in order to facilitate communication and transport. Nevertheless, world wide, not all countries are concerned by this change of time. Russia, Iran and Egypt, for instance, have abandoned this practice, as has Turkey, which renounced it last year.
