Rabat - Morocco will return to standard time, GMT, on Sunday, October 28, at 3:00 a.m..
Rabat – Morocco will return to standard time, GMT, on Sunday, October 28, at 3:00 a.m..
Moroccans will turn clocks back on Sunday, ending the summer’s Daylight Saving Time (DST), or (GMT+1). The Ministry of Administration, Modernization, and Civil Service officially announced the change October 23.
Every year, Morocco adopts DST for the summer, returns to standard time for a period when Ramadan falls in summer, re-adopts DST for the remainder of the summer, returns again to Standard Time for winter on the last Sunday in October.
The decision is an implementation of Decree 2-13-781 from September 2013, modifying an earlier decree on changing time.
Daylight Saving Time was first widely adopted during the first World War in the German Empire and Austria to reduce the need for lighting after daylight.
Many Moroccans have expressed their wish to stop switching to GMT+1 due to the disadvantages of changing times on health.
In 2017, a group of activists launched a petition urging the government and the Parliamentary Council to abolish the biannual time change and maintain Standard Time.
The president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, proposed at the EU Parliament on September 12 that the continental organization end the seasonal clock change in 2019.
For a “smooth transition,” the proposal suggests that member states should announce their decisions by April 2019.