“The Verkhovna Rada allowed to “squeeze” the land for the second time”: Iryna Fedoriv on the scandalous draft law on the forced alienation of land in the Carpathians
On the night of March 29-30, the hands of the clocks will move forward again – 3:00 will become 4:00. Most Ukrainians will sigh, putting down their smartphones after the usual phrase “don’t forget to change the clock”, and will wake up again with a strange feeling that time is running out. Changing the clocks is a long-standing practice that is continued by dozens of countries around the world, although every spring and fall the same question is asked: why? Does this decision really still make economic sense when most businesses operate on flexible schedules, offices are empty during war, and electricity consumption is almost independent of the position of the sun? And if a few decades ago it somehow fit into the logic of frugality, now it is rather a trigger for deterioration of health and bad mood. Should we continue changing the hands of the clock twice a year — a question that has long since turned from a formal decision into an annual point of tension between habit, logic and common sense.
Daylight saving time: a trade-off that doesn’t exist
In Ukraine, the transition to summer time is taking place despite the fact that the Verkhovna Rada voted to cancel the change of clocks back in 2024. Draft Law No. 4201 provided for fixing the national time at UTC+2 — the so-called winter time — without seasonal changes. However, without the signature of the President of Ukraine, the document remained only adopted, but not valid. And that is why the country is once again returning to a practice that has been considered outdated in many countries for many years.
It should be noted that the idea of changing the clock seasonally was first voiced by Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century. He calculated how much energy can be saved if a person wakes up earlier – according to sunrise – and does not waste candles in the evening. In the 20th century, this idea was picked up by the British contractor William Willett, and practically implemented by Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1916 – during the First World War, when saving resources was a matter of survival. Gradually, the system became pan-European, and later spread beyond the borders of the continent. Ukraine joined this practice in 1981, while still part of the USSR. After the declaration of independence, there were attempts to change the approach, but finally in 1996 the Cabinet of Ministers approved the current order of time calculation. Since then, every year Ukrainians change their clocks – to summer time on the last Sunday of March and to winter time on the last Sunday of October.
However, the European experience, which is usually cited by proponents of seasonal clock change, looks ambiguous in recent years. EU countries will continue to change the time twice a year, but at the same time they are discussing options for the final abolition of this procedure. Referendums in many countries have shown that the vast majority of citizens support leaving daylight saving time as permanent. At the same time, states in the north of the continent remain exceptions, where the difference between the length of daylight in summer and winter is excessive, and summer time there complicates the rhythm of life. However, in Ukraine, they decided not to be interested in the opinion of the people, so the referendum was not held on this issue.
Our country is not unique in the matter of time change — seasonal change of clock hands is observed in more than 60 countries of the world. In particular, it is still used by Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel, Iran, Mexico, partly by the USA, Italy, Spain, France, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland and other countries. Back in 2018-2019, the European Commission suggested that EU countries finally abandon the time change. Each state had to decide which time regime to keep – winter or summer. Discussions continued at the level of national governments, parliaments, in some cases even through online consultations or citizen surveys, and most societies chose summer time as permanent. Starting in 2021, each country of the European Union has the opportunity to decide independently whether to switch clocks to summer and winter time.
As a result, countries continue to transfer arrows twice a year, but with less and less enthusiasm. Meanwhile, some countries outside Europe decided differently. For example, as early as 2016, Turkey abandoned seasonal time and left the summer regime permanent. Belarus, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Iceland, Georgia, and Japan did the same. In the USA, the time is still changed at the federal level, but some states – Arizona, Hawaii – abandoned this practice long ago, using their powers. At the same time, a number of American states have already passed legislation to cancel the clock change, but are waiting for the approval of Congress to implement it in practice.
Despite the formal devotion to seasonal time, the general trend in the world is directed towards rejection. The world is gradually recognizing that the logic of energy saving at the beginning of the 20th century does not work now, in the conditions of the digital age. But habit, institutional inertia and political fragmentation prevent the system from changing completely. However, Ukraine is one of many countries in this zone of prolonged waiting.
Whether time transfer is necessary: opinions differ
Discussions in Ukraine regarding the expediency of transferring arrows have not subsided for at least three decades. In 2024, the Academy of Sciences of the Higher School officially appealed to the president with the demand to veto the law on the rejection of daylight saving time. The president of the academy, Oleksandr Nakonechny, argued that the transition to summer time promotes the rational use of daylight hours and, accordingly, reduces energy consumption. He reminded that summer time was introduced in Ukraine for the first time back in 1919, when the territory of the Ukrainian People’s Republic was guided by European trends in time management.
According to the results of a survey by the “Rating” group, conducted in 2024, 55% of citizens want to stop the seasonal time change. Against – 39%. Another 7% have not yet decided which time is more convenient for them to live in – whether it is summer, winter, or perhaps without all this temporal commotion. It is interesting that regional differences in attitude towards the translation of arrows exist, although not dramatic. In the west of the country, 61% of those surveyed support the idea of refusal — perhaps because that is where winter time better coincides with natural daylight. In the east, the level of support is lower — 51%. But even here, most people agree that constant time is a better option than the old system with two calendar points per year. At the same time, the attitude almost does not change with age. It can be said that Ukrainians, regardless of generation, are tired of this semi-artificial ritual. The only question is how much time is left – and who will eventually take the political responsibility to put an end to this story.
The arguments of the supporters of the time shift boil down to the fact that the shift of the daylight hours allows to reduce the evening consumption of electricity, facilitates the planning of production processes and is partially consistent with the European rhythm. Especially in the conditions of war, when the energy of the country works on the limit, even a small saving of resources acquires importance. However, the opponents of this idea emphasize something else: no modern studies prove a significant saving effect from time shifting, but the medical and psychological consequences are quite real. Disruption in circadian rhythms, poor sleep, decreased concentration, stress — all of this is well documented and manifests itself in the first days after the time change. Separately, there are arguments about safety: in the first weeks after the transition to summer time, an increase in the number of road accidents and incidents related to fatigue and inattention is recorded.
The idea of changing the clocks has long been based on one basic argument — energy saving. In the middle of the 20th century, it really made sense: less artificial lighting, less costs. However, reality has long since changed, but logic has remained. The structure of energy consumption in households and businesses no longer depends on when people turn on the lights. The main energy loads are not related to light bulbs, but to air conditioners, boilers, refrigerators, digital services — and they all work outside the daylight hours.
Time shifting continues to exist more out of tradition than out of a functional sense. In most countries that still practice this approach, it has long been recognized that its effect is marginal. Even in Europe, where the idea of summer time was supported as part of a collective energy discipline, the cancellation of the transfer has been delayed for several years only because of the bureaucratic complexity of agreement between all countries. Ukraine is still balancing between intentions and inaction. Despite the law on canceling the clock change passed by the parliament, the country switches to summer time again, because the document never came into force. Formally, because the president did not sign it. In fact, due to political inertia and the lack of a consolidated vision on what time to stay.
At the same time, one should agree with the opponents of changing the hands of clocks, because it is not just an inconvenience or confusion, but has significant negative consequences for people, which is very important. The body reacts to this process like a minister, so the most noticeable effects occur immediately in the first days after the change: sleep disturbance, fatigue, irritability, headache, decreased concentration of attention. That is why even a small shift in the biological rhythm leads to an increase in the number of road accidents, as well as incidents at work. In addition, in the first days after the transfer of arrows, doctors record an increase in heart attacks and exacerbation of chronic diseases. For a country living in a state of war, this is especially sensitive. When millions of people already have erratic sleep patterns, the added burden of artificial time shifting can only deepen the imbalance. Therefore, the biological clock does not change as easily as the electronic clock – and usually the whole body pays for it.
There is also a territorial aspect that complicates the situation even more. Ukraine is a large country stretching from west to east. Natural time of most regions is winter time, UTC+2. But in the east of the country, the sunrise moves almost an hour ahead of the sunset. This creates a conflict of interests: for some, summer time looks logical, for others – unnatural. A gap of 60-70 minutes in the perception of time between Uzhgorod and Luhansk is not a fiction, but a tangible everyday reality. As a result, people in the east wake up before dawn, and people in the west start the day in the dark.
In addition, digitalization has changed the very nature of time: in the era of flexible schedules, online work and remote offices, the need to adapt to a single rhythm of the day has lost its relevance. In the current conditions, when a large part of Ukrainians work remotely, the meaning of changing the clock becomes even less obvious. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies and organizations began to massively switch to a remote format – with a flexible schedule, when the start of the working day is determined not by a central clock, but by personal agreement or life circumstances. After the start of a full-scale war, this tendency not only persisted, but also intensified. Some of the employees work from abroad, some from different regions of Ukraine, where living conditions, daylight, and alarm schedules dictate their rhythms.
In such conditions, the artificial transfer of time is unlikely to provide any unification or increase in efficiency. On the contrary, it confuses the usual rhythm of life even more. If earlier the hands were moved to accommodate a fixed factory or office schedule, now most work processes are arranged in such a way that one hour forward or backward has no effect on productivity. Meetings take place online, e-mail has no working hours, documents are signed in “Diya”, and offices – if they are open – often have flexible hours. Moreover, during a war in regions with threats of shelling or blackouts, the work schedule is often adjusted to the situation in a particular city, rather than to the national clock. People tend to focus on light, security, availability of communications or electricity, rather than what the “official” time is.
However, the key issues for Ukraine should be not only whether to cancel the time change, but at which time to stop. Summer looks more attractive for the east. Winter — closer to the natural rhythm and more convenient for sunset. However, staying in limbo is the worst option. Natural time for Ukraine is winter time — UTC+2. More than 95% of the country’s territory is located in this time zone. At the same time, the geographical latitude of the country — from Transcarpathia to Donetsk — creates up to 68 minutes of difference in solar time. Therefore, what is convenient for residents of Western Ukraine may be uncomfortable for residents of the East. For example, in summer in the east of the country, the sun rises before 4:00 a.m., and in winter in the west – only around 9:00 a.m.
This regional asymmetry makes a single solution difficult for all. Technically, the situation could be solved with two time zones, as in the US or Canada. But for Ukraine, such a scenario is risky – not only from the point of view of logistics, but also from the point of view of political unity, because time is also a symbol of state integrity. Therefore, the compromise should be different: flexibility in work schedules for individual regions and a nationwide solution that does not depend on the calendar.
Against this background, the lack of a final political solution now looks like the government shirking its responsibility. The Verkhovna Rada’s attempt to establish winter time in 2021 failed to gain votes, while the 2024 draft law also remained unsigned. As a result, the country is in a state of waiting — with regular fluctuations of the arrows, heated discussions in the expert environment and lack of stability. Therefore, the transfer of arrows today looks like a remnant of industrial logic in the post-industrial world, which lives according to flexible rules, in a variety of rhythms and realities. Moreover, there are fewer and fewer areas where “daylight transfer” really works, and more and more areas where it simply gets in the way.
Therefore, Ukraine, like most countries, must decide whether such a practice is justified in modern conditions. Time works not only as a physical quantity, but as a social contract. However, until it is reviewed and finally approved, we will continue to wake up an hour earlier in March – without the certainty that it is really necessary.
Oksana Ishchenko
