Changing times in Greenland

Greenland’s parliament has decided that a large part of the huge Arctic island will change the time zone in the coming year.

According to this, most Greenlanders will put their clocks forward by one hour to daylight saving time in spring 2023, but will not put them back any more in autumn. This means that the capital of Greenland, Nuuk, for example, is no longer in the time zone UTC-3 (Ccoordinated uuniversal Time, in German: Coordinated World Time), but in UTC-2 – each with a three-hour time difference to New York (UTC-5) and Copenhagen or Berlin (UTC+1).

Some Greenlandic politicians had expressed concerns that the change could have consequences for public health. The Greenlandic economy, on the other hand, worked to have a greater overlap of their working day with European companies.

The time change is possible because Greenland can now determine its own four time zones after an agreement with the Danish government. The largest island in the world belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark, but is largely self-governing. Denmark is primarily responsible for foreign and defense policy.

wha/ack (dpa)