diff --git a/eraser-base/src/main/jastadd/Item.jrag b/eraser-base/src/main/jastadd/Item.jrag
index 44bd760f2c5923d3b2b885e77f1d532824488ea0..0da01f65292f82b4056ccf79015348b768f700a5 100644
--- a/eraser-base/src/main/jastadd/Item.jrag
+++ b/eraser-base/src/main/jastadd/Item.jrag
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 aspect ItemHandling {
 
-  private static final java.text.DateFormat DateTimeItem.FORMAT = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX");
+  private static final java.text.DateFormat DateTimeItem.FORMAT = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS") {{
+    setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
+  }};
 
   //--- getStateAsString ---
   syn String Item.getStateAsString();
diff --git a/eraser-base/src/test/resources/tests/ppc3/output.eraser b/eraser-base/src/test/resources/tests/ppc3/output.eraser
index 46b76f0c1dd447ab18282e729dba93e7b277e6f5..414cf9778f02c5e4697e17be4b97da5fb4e38a6b 100644
--- a/eraser-base/src/test/resources/tests/ppc3/output.eraser
+++ b/eraser-base/src/test/resources/tests/ppc3/output.eraser
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ Color Item: id="color1" label="a Color Item" state="1,2,3" topic="item/hsb/color
 Contact Item: id="contact1" label="a Contact Item" state="true" topic="item/bool/contact1/state" ;
 Image Item: id="image1" label="an Image Item" state="def" topic="item/str/image1/state" ;
 Location Item: id="location1" label="a Location Item" state="ghi" topic="item/str/location1/state" ;
-DateTime Item: id="datetime1" label="a DateTime Item" state="1970-01-18T21:43:35.826+01:00" topic="item/date/datetime1/state" ;
+DateTime Item: id="datetime1" label="a DateTime Item" state="1970-01-18T20:43:35.826" topic="item/date/datetime1/state" ;
 Item: id="default1" label="a Default Item" state="pqr" topic="item/str/default1/state" ;
 Dimmer Item: id="dimmer1" label="a Dimmer Item" state="123.0" topic="item/double/dimmer1/state" ;
 Player Item: id="player1" label="a Player Item" state="jkl" topic="item/str/player1/state" ;