The Polish People’s Party (PSL) announced on Friday that it intends to make this weekend’s time adjustment Europe’s last.

Research commissioned two years ago by the European Parliament showed that 90% of the bloc’s population oppose the practice of changing the time twice a year.

This Sunday, the time will change at 3am, going back an hour to 2am, as a result of which Europeans will have an hour’s extra sleep.

The European Parliament (EP) voted in 2019 to discontinue European summertime from 2021. The project was put on the back burner due to the Covid pandemic, since when it has stalled.

Krzysztof Paszyk, a PSL MP and deputy minister of economic development and technology, said enough is enough.

"We want to make a declaration today,” Polish state news agency PAP quoted him as saying. “We will use the Polish presidency of the EU, which starts on January 1, 2025, to break this impasse... We have been observing it for many years, despite the efforts of Polish MEPs.”

‘Negative’ health effects

Paszyk said the time change had negative consequences for health, as well as socially and economically.

A group of MEPs agree with the PSL and have raised the issue, highlighting its effects on sleep cycles, heart attack rates and traffic accidents.

"It is time to put an end to the biannual clock change, which has been proven to have negative effects on health, well-being, and safety,” Irish MEP Seán Kelly of the European People’s Party said in a statement.

Kelly is heading a European Parliament initiative to abolish daylight saving and has sent a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed by MEPs from across the political spectrum.

"There is widespread agreement across the political spectrum that the clock change needs to end ... it’s a practical and popular measure,” he continued, as quoted by Euronews.

A 2017 European Parliament study revealed the impact of clock changes on human biorhythms to be “more severe than previously thought,” with inconclusive benefits or drawbacks for sectors such as agriculture, Euronews reported.

The UK and Germany introduced summertime during World War I to conserve coal. The practice in the EU dates back decades and is covered by a 2001 directive.