EU ministers extend maternity leave rights

December 1, 2009 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News

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EU ministers have extended maternity leave rights for parents in the European Union.

A revised directive on the European Union policy of parental leave was issued by EU ministers yesterday.

Vladimir Spidla, of the European Commissioner for Employment

The directive, to be applied to EU member’s national laws within two years, will extend available maternity leave for each parent from three months to four months. Additionally, smoother transitions back to work through flexible work arrangements and protections against discrimination were added, according to a statement issued by EU officials.

“The directive agreed upon today is a decisive contribution to allowing working parents to better balance family and work,” said Vladimir Spidla, of the European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. “I believe that this will strengthen women’s position in employment.”

Marina Yannakoudakis, of the women’s committee spokesman for the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, opposed the new directive on the basis that one generic rule covering all EU members potentially harms employment prospects and decreases flexibility.

“Setting rules on maternity and paternity leave from Brussels will just decrease the amount of flexibility new mothers and fathers have,” said Yannakoudakis.

“Stricter EU rules on maternity leave will make it harder for women of child bearing age to get work, particularly in small businesses. Small business owners with only a handful of staff are struggling to meet payroll costs already, without the EU forcing them to pay a member of staff for five months without a day’s work.”

“Once again we are seeing how well-intentioned EU employment law is actually exacerbating our unemployment crisis,” she added.

The news comes as the U.K. debates its own maternity policy. Nichola Pease, deputy chairman of J O Hambro Capital Management, told the Treasury Committee this past October that the U.K.’s one year of maternity leave is “too long.”

Pease told the committee that lawmaker’s needed “to be realistic” when dealing with maternity legislation “and make sure the protection, which has very good motivation, doesn’t end up backfiring both at a female level and at a U.K. competitiveness level.”

Additional concerns about British women’s reintegration into the workplace were raised yesterday when an Aston Business University study found that 90 percent of women that returned to work after such a lengthy leave were never given any reintroduction. Nearly 40 percent rated their re-entry into the workplace as “difficult” or “very difficult”.