Hungary and Lithuania to abolish daylight saving time?
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According to mno.hu, Lithuania would like to abolish daylight saving time in the European Union. The parliament of Vilnius decided to start negotiations with Brussels on the issue. The problem was raised in Hungary last autumn by the biggest opposition party, Jobbik. Lajos Kepli, a lawmaker of the party stated this April that abandoning the twice-yearly clock changes would improve Hungarians’ mental health and increase the nation’s productivity. However, the government did not support the idea and outvoted it in the National Assembly’s Committee on Economic Affairs.
80% of Hungarians are fed up with DST
In fact, Hungary is currently in the Central European Time Zone, one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT+1). Like most states in Europe, time is shifted forward by 1 hour; 2 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT+2) during summer. After the summer months, the clock in Hungary is turned back by 1 hour to Central European Time (CET) or (GMT+1). This is the so-called daylight saving time (DST) introduced in the 80s to spare energy.
As we reported before, a survey showed that four out of five Hungarians would cancel DST. In addition, one out of five doesn’t even know if they have to shift forward or backwards in the autumn. Clearly, half of the respondents mentioned that
the main problem is the turnover of their biological balance.
In fact, the primary reason of those who are against the winter time is the early darkening. 4 people out of 10 feel discomfort in the early dark hours. The majority of people over 55 stated that they even have
health problems after each time shift.
Thus, it is not by chance that a Hungarian Facebook-group supporting the abolishment of daylight saving time has more than 10 thousand followers already.
Lithuania starting negotiations with Brussels
People think similarly in Lithuania, as well. An opinion poll published this year showed that 79% of them were against the annual ritual of adjusting clocks. Thus, Lithuania has said that
