In a press release on Tuesday, Europe's electric transmission lobby said that ovens, microwaves, and radios across continental Europe could be running almost six minutes slow due to a power grid dispute between Serbia and neighboring Kosovo.

Power-connected clocks on appliances generally tell time by counting the rate of the electrical current, which in Europe is supposed to hold a constant frequency of 50Hz. If that frequency drops below 50Hz, connected appliance clocks will be slow, and if it rises above 50Hz, clocks will be fast. Since mid-January, clocks that are on the Continental Europe Power System, a synchronized area that reaches through 25 countries across the continent, have seen a deviation from grid-time based on an average frequency of 49.996 Hz.

What do grid disputes have to do with anything? Serbia and Kosovo are part of the Continental Europe Power System, and, per an agreement, Kosovo is required to balance electrical supply and demand on its grid, while Serbia is required to help Kosovo manage that balancing. But the agreement between Serbia and Kosovo appears to have fallen apart, and neither side is talking to the other. That has resulted in 113GWh of unmet demand from Kosovo, which, spread across the whole synchronized area, has led to a decline in frequency—not big enough to cause power outages (at measurements below 47.5 Hz and above 52.5 Hz, the grid and devices connected to it disconnect) but big enough to warp time.

Well, not really. But relying on a quartz clock or a clock connected to the Internet is a better bet at this point.

"This average frequency deviation, that has never happened in any similar way in the CE Power system, must cease," the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (or ENTSO-E) wrote. As for the 113GWh of energy that was never added to the system, the group stated that "the question of who will compensate for this loss has to be answered."

ENTSO-E said it would work with the regions involved to try to resolve any technical issues, but the political issues underlying the problem have to be dealt with by policymakers. "ENTSO-E is urging European and national governments and policymakers to take swift action. These actions need to address the political side of this issue, supporting ENTSO-E's and the TSOs' actions to deliver a technical solution."

For now, ENTSO-E says deviation risk remains as long as the dispute is not resolved. Owners of clocks can reset them now, but they'll require a second reset once the Continental Europe Power System does resolve the issue. The group says that clocks will all return back to normal once the issue has been resolved.

"The first step is to cease the deviation," ENTSO-E wrote. "The second step is to compensate for the missing amount of energy. It is foreseen to solve step 1 this week, while the timeline for step 2 has yet to be decided. Taking the system back to normal could take a few weeks."