An hour was skipped between two and three o’clock tonight.Image: keystone
The time has come: The clocks in Switzerland and most European countries were set forward by one hour on Sunday night.
March 29, 2026, 05:39Mar 29, 2026, 5:45 a.m
If you feel unusually sleepy this morning, it could be due to a well-known circumstance: Daylight saving time is in effect again and you slept an hour less if you got up at the same time as usual.
This Sunday only lasts 23 hours. At 2 a.m. the clocks were set forward one hour to 3 a.m. The time change to “Central European Summer Time” (CEST) begins on the last Sunday in March and ends on the last Sunday in October. Summer time 2026 lasts 30 weeks or 210 days. On October 25th, the clocks will be reset to 2 o’clock and standard time at 3 a.m.
A possible abolition of the seasonal time change has become a political issue, especially in Switzerland’s neighboring countries. The EU Commission presented concrete plans, but the member states of the European Union did not follow suit.
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Critics of the time change complain about negative effects on health and animal welfare. Children and older people in particular would suffer from mini-jet lag. There are also more traffic accidents due to fatigue. The change is also a thorn in the side of agriculture because the milk production of the cows will be lower.
Daylight saving time was introduced in Europe for the first time in 1973 against the backdrop of the oil crisis. The time difference was intended to gain an hour more daylight for companies and households with the aim of saving energy. In order not to become a time island, Switzerland followed suit in 1981.
Metas guards time
In Switzerland, the Federal Institute of Metrology (Metas) is responsible for time. It maintains several atomic clocks in its laboratories and thus participates in the realization of coordinated universal time (Universal Time Coordinated / UTC).
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sèvres near Paris determines coordinated universal time from data from around 350 to 400 atomic clocks from over 60 reference laboratories around the world. It is the global reference time that sets the pace for all time zones.
To fine-tune world time, there are around a dozen particularly precise atomic clocks around the world, so-called primary frequency standards. One of these clocks is also at Metas in Wabern near Bern. This clock, called “Fontaine Continue Suisse,” runs so precisely that it would take 30 million years for two of these special clocks to have a one-second difference.
According to Metas, the exact time is playing an increasingly important role, for example in stock market trading or the implementation of technologies. (sda/con)