The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted bill No. 4201 on cancelling daylight savings.
Points of attention
- The bill envisages the permanent standard time of UTC+2 in Ukraine.
- The transition to summer or winter can negatively affect a person's biorhythms and the body's general state.
- After cancelling daylight savings, Ukrainians can avoid changes in biological rhythms and deterioration of well-being.
- Against the background of this decision, Ukraine will join many countries that have also refused to change their clocks to summer and winter.
Verkhovna Rada cancelled daylight savings
Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak from the "Voice" faction reported that 261 MPs voted for it.
The bill proposes to establish that "Kyiv time is the time of the time zone in which the capital of Ukraine (the city of Kyiv) is located, which corresponds to the second time zone in the national coordinated time scale of Ukraine UTC (UA) +2."
It means the bill establishes a permanent time standard of UTC+2 on the international scale in Ukraine. The parliament voted for this draft law in the first reading back in March 2021, but then the Council did not support it.
If the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, soon signs the bill, then this year, Ukrainians will change their clocks to winter time for the last time on October 27 — and from 2025 onwards, there will be no changes.
Why "changing" time can be dangerous
Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, initiated the bill. He explained its expediency by pointing out that the transition to summer or winter has a negative effect on human biorhythms.
In fact, Ukraine is within the same time zone, and Stefanchuk noted that the economic feasibility of changing the clock hands has not been proven.
According to several experts, the "seasonal time jump" leads to a change in a person's biological rhythms, which has a negative impact on their general condition—both physiological and psychological.
It is about the fact that after turning the hands of the clock, citizens:
feeling worse;
work capacity decreases;
there is a significant exacerbation of chronic diseases.
The transition to summer and winter time is regulated by the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, adopted in 1996. Today, about 60 countries around the world continue to use daylight savings one hour forward and back every year. Most of them are in Europe. And in some countries, for example, in the US, Canada, Mexico and Australia, the daylight savings are not used in the entire territory.
