Parents will be entitled to an extra month of leave each to raise their children after EU employment ministers yesterday approved a European Commission proposal.
The directive, which comes into effect in two years' time, is mainly aimed at encouraging fathers to share the responsibility of bringing up a family.
At the moment,both working parents have the right to take three months' parental leave for each child, so they can stay at home and help run the household.
Through the new directive, the minimum parental leave a parent is entitled to will increase by a month, meaning two more months and eight months in total for the couple combined.
However, at least one month of the father's entitlement cannot be transferred to the mother, as is the practice today in many member states (Malta being one of the exceptions), and will be lost if the father does not take advantage of this right.
"We want more fathers to help bring up their children, which is why we introduced such measures," a Commission spokesman said.
"Currently, many fathers are just transferring their right to the mother so she gets six months of parental leave to stay at home with the kids. Through this system a couple can have a total of eight months and one of these cannot be transferred. This is to oblige the father to stay at home if he wants to avail himself of parental leave."
For Malta, where parental leave is not paid and cannot be transferred from one parent to another, this measure will mostly affect parents working in the private sector. Public sector employees already enjoy superior parental leave entitlements through their collective agreement - a maximum one year unpaid per child and a one-off five-year unpaid leave period.
The present Maltese law stipulates that the entitlement of parental leave is valid until a child is eight years old.
Malta, represented at the Em-ployment Council by Health Parliamentary Secretary Joe Cassar, supported the proposal that includes other rights for parents.
Employees applying for parental leave would be protected from discrimination while those returning to work from parental leave would have the right to request changes to their work schedules for a limited period of time.
In considering such requests, employers would be obliged to balance the employee's needs with those of the company. In the case of parents of adopted children or those with disability or long-term illness, governments, employers and unions would be obliged to assess the specific needs.
The new rights will apply to all workers, regardless of their type of contract, be it fixed-term, part-time or agency work.
Welcoming the agreement, Employment Commissioner Vlad-imir Spidla said full equality within the labour market would only be attained if working fathers took more responsibility in family affairs.
"This directive is a decisive contribution to allow working parents to better balance family and work. I believe this will strengthen women's position in employment," he said.