Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 uses a single timezone, denoted as Central European Time

Central European Time

Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00...

 (CET: UTC+01:00). Belgium also observes summer time

Daylight saving time

Daylight saving time —also summer time in several countries including in British English and European official terminology —is the practice of temporarily advancing clocks during the summertime so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less...

, shifting to Central European Summer Time

Central European Summer Time

Central European Summer Time is one of the names of the Daylight saving time offset using the UTC offset of UTC+02:00, 2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used as a summer daylight saving time in most European countries. During the winter, Central European Time is used...

 (CEST: UTC+02:00). The shift to summer time in Europe occurs on the last Sunday in March, while the shift back to standard time occurs on the last Sunday in October.

History

Belgium adopted a standard time, then known as Brussels Mean Time, in 1880. In 1892, the country switched to Greenwich Mean Time

Greenwich Mean Time

Greenwich Mean Time is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is arguably the same as Coordinated Universal Time and when this is viewed as a time zone the name Greenwich Mean Time is especially used by bodies connected with the United...

, also called Western European Time

Western European Time

Western European Time , defined legally as Greenwich Mean Time in the United Kingdom, is the time zone covering parts of western and northwestern Europe, and includes the following countries and regions:...

 (WET: UTC+0

UTC+0

UTC±0 is the following time:*Coordinated Universal Time, the basis for the world's civil time, occasionally referred to by the name of its predecessor, Greenwich Mean Time.*Western European Time .-As standard time :...

). Brussels remained on WET until the invasions of the Germans during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, at which time Belgium was switched to CET. At the end of WWI, Belgium returned to WET until the invasion by Germany during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, when it again switched to CET. Belgium remained on CET at the end of WWII, and has remained on this time standard since.

Summer time

Daylight saving time

Daylight saving time —also summer time in several countries including in British English and European official terminology —is the practice of temporarily advancing clocks during the summertime so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less...

was first introduced by the German occupation in 1918, and continued until the end of the Second World War. It was not reinstituted until 1977 when the first Summer Time Directive came into force.