Eastern European Time (Bucharest)

Romania uses Eastern European Time (EET/EEST), one hour ahead of the CET zone that covers most of Western Europe. Bucharest, the capital, is the sixth-largest city in the EU and often called 'Little Paris' for its Belle Époque architecture. Romania adopted EET in 1931. The country has emerged as a major European IT hub, with Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest producing some of the continent's best software developers. Romania's IT sector accounts for about 7% of GDP, one of the highest ratios in Europe. The Bucharest Stock Exchange operates on EET. Romania's timezone — the same as Finland, Greece, and the Baltic states — provides a useful two-hour overlap advantage for European companies needing coverage into Asian business hours. The country's tech workforce includes contributors to major open-source projects and employees of companies like UiPath (the robotic process automation giant, founded in Bucharest). Timișoara was the first European city to have electric street lighting in 1884 and was the spark point of the 1989 Romanian Revolution. Romania's Carpathian Mountains, Black Sea coast, and Transylvanian castles all operate on Bucharest time.