Ljubljana - At 2am this morning, clocks were set an hour forward in Slovenia to run on Daylight Saving Time until the last Sunday in October, when clocks will be moved back to wintertime. In line with an EU decision from last year, this practice will remain in place at least until 2026.

In 2019, the European Parliament voted to eliminate the twice-a-year custom of changing the clocks in 2021, giving countries the option to choose whether to keep winter or summer time.

At the time, the Slovenian government supported the Parliament's decision under the condition that a mechanism to transit to a new practice is agreed at EU level to prevent inter-state inconveniences, especially in transport.

However, since the pandemic somewhat overshadowed this topic, the European Commission decided last year to preserve the existing practice at least until 2026.

Slovenia started switching between winter and summer times in 1983, while deciding in 2006 that the changes be made every last Sunday in March and last Sunday in October.

Slovenia's standard time is Central European Time (CET), which corresponds to wintertime. Consultations in 2018 meanwhile showed that Slovenians were more in favour of adopting summertime as the new standard.