March 28 (UPI) — The European Parliament has voted to end the mandatory practice of adjusting clocks for daylight saving time by 2021.
On Tuesday, members of the European Parliament voted 410-192 with 51 abstentions in favor of ditching daylight saving time.
In two years, each of the 28 EU member states must decide if they want to continue moving clocks 1 hour ahead each March and 1 hour back each October.
The countries that choose to continue observing daylight saving time will be under “summertime” and those using standard time will be considered “wintertime.”
The vote comes one year after the European Parliament called on a commission to review daylight saving time and whether the reasons it was first introduced during World War I still hold up. The European Union first require all member states to be compliant with daylight saving time in 1980.
Critics of daylight saving time reference a 2017 European Parliament study that says the practice interrupts the human biorhythm, causing people to lose sleep, which leads to more accidents.
