Longer maternity leave moves step ahead

Parents can chill the champagne after a resolution aiming to increase maternity leave in the EU to a minimum of 20 weeks and giving fathers two weeks off was approved by the European Parliament yesterday.

However, it can be a while before they can pop open the bubbly as this move, vehemently opposed by businesses across the EU, cannot enter into force without the consent of member states’ qualified majority. An agreement on this provision seems quite unlikely at the moment.

If adopted, the directive will mean Malta will have to start granting would-be mothers an extra six weeks maternity leave over and above the 14 weeks already provided through national law. Fathers of newborns will become entitled to two weeks of fully paid paternity leave to stay at home with their babies, as opposed to just two days.

Large member states, headed by the UK, have already declared their opposition and said they would campaign to defeat the resolution when it arrived at EU Council level.

Malta has not yet adopted an official position on the dossier and has so far taken a cautious attitude, probably to wait for the EP’s vote before forming its official stand. However, the government is being pressured by the Maltese business community to reject the proposals considered to be a burden.

According to a study compiled by the Malta Business Bureau, the move could raise Malta’s maternity leave bill by €12 million a year.

Malta’s five MEPs who took part in yesterday’s vote had different positions on the issue.

While the three Labour MEPs fully backed the provisions, the two Nationalist MEPs voted against an extension of maternity leave to 20 weeks as they preferred this to increase by four weeks, to 18, as originally proposed by the European Commission.

Apart from granting more leave to would-be parents, the new directive will also ban the dismissal of pregnant workers between the beginning of a pregnancy to at least six months following the end of the maternity leave.

It also lays down that women must be entitled to return to their jobs or to “equivalent posts”, meaning a position with the same pay, professional category and duties as they had before their maternity leave.