The Verkhovna Rada adopted draft law No. 4201 on canceling the change of clocks to summer and winter time.
Peopleʼs deputy from the "Holos" faction Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported this. A total of 261 peopleʼs deputies voted for it.
The draft law 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." That is, the law establishes a permanent UTC+2 time standard in Ukraine according to the international scale. 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 draft law, 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.
The initiator of the draft law was the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk. He explained its expediency by the fact that the transition to summer or winter time has a negative effect on human biorhythms. In fact, all of Ukraine is within the same time zone, and the economic feasibility of moving clock hands has not been proven, Stefanchuk noted.
- The transition to summer and winter time is regulated by the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, adopted in 1996. Today, almost 60 countries around the world change their clocks one hour forward and back every year. Most of them are in Europe. And in some countries, for example, in the USA, Canada, Mexico and Australia, the clocks are not adjusted across the entire territory.