rejected the proposal. Introduction of daylight saving time Daylight saving time was first attempted on 2 April 1942, after the Finnish Medical Society Duodecim claimed that observing daylight saving time would provide economic benefits (the later light in the evenings means less energy consumption) and limit food consumption. The clock moved forward one hour at 24:00 and back again on 4 October at 01:00, but the government did not find daylight saving time useful and its observation was abandoned. In 1980, the other Nordic countries introduced daylight saving time, in line with the directive from the European Economic Community, as did the Soviet Union in 1981. In order to avoid the disturbance of changing time differences with the rest of Europe, daylight saving time was introduced again in Finland in 1981, which was observed from 02:00 EET the last Sunday in March to 03:00 EET on the last Sunday in October, following the same schedule as the other Nordic countries and the Soviet Union so that their time zones could always be aligned. Since 1983, the change has been made an hour later. When Finland joined the European Union (successor to the European Economic Community) in 1995, it continued to observe daylight saving time in line with said directive and is now bound by European Union law to follow it. The current government regulation stipulating that the European Union directive be followed came into effect in 2001. Daylight saving time Finland observes daylight saving time by advancing the clock forward one hour from Eastern European Time in UTC+02:00 to Eastern European Summer Time in UTC+03:00 at 03:00 EET on the last Sunday in March and back at 04:00 EET on the last Sunday in October. Finland has observed daylight saving time since 1981. Finland's high latitude means that in summer the nights are short (in Helsinki in July, there are only five hours between sunset and sunrise), and daylight saving time has no impact on the population. In spring and autumn it does (with Helsinki experiencing between 13 to 18 hours of sunlight in spring and 11 to 6 hours in autumn), in addition to the advantage of keeping the time coordinated with other countries. Proposals to end daylight saving time In 2017, the Finnish parliament voted in favour of proposals calling on the European Union to consider abolishing daylight saving time, and a citizen's petition that same year asking