Brussels, 20/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Employment and Social Policy (EPSCO) Council in Luxembourg on Thursday 16 June took note of a progress report on recent work on maternity leave. In fact, little progress has been made, bringing criticism from the S&D, in particular Edite Estrela (Portugal), rapporteur on this matter, and the Greens/EFA, through Jill Evans (United Kingdom). Ministers expressed their, largely differing, views at their meeting. All of this led Commission Vice-President with responsibility for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Viviane Reding to state: “We are in deadlock!”
The Commission is happy to accept certain key amendments put by the European Parliament (EP), such as granting 20 weeks' maternity leave on full pay and paternity leave. The question is, however, how to break the deadlock. Reding spoke of a bridging clause that would allow other types of leave to be included in maternity leave. But why not discuss the issue with the EP? Reding said she is ready to help the incoming Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers take the matter forward.
Germany has stated its desire to protect mothers and pregnant women, and says that this must be reflected in the legislation. It is also important to Germany that they money available to families should also be available to mothers. Hence the need for financial assistance during pregnancy. This assistance should extend for a year and should also involve fathers. The directive sets the minimum health and safety standards for working women, and any moving away from these minimum standards represents a danger to the principle of subsidiarity. The same warning was delivered from Sweden, which drew attention to proportionality and subsidiarity. Germany supports a compromise proposal but is awaiting scientific assessment of the EP proposal. Ireland says the time in not yet ripe for a joint decision, but it backs the Commission proposal. The Netherlands, too, is calling for impact assessment studies and points out that the EP amendments go much further than the Commission proposal, in that the EP is calling for 20 weeks' fully paid maternity leave and two weeks' paternity leave. Estonia wants to see the leave for both parents combined with other allowances. Estonia says the Commission compromise is very important and wants the EP proposals to be reconsidered in depth. The Commission and the incoming Presidency must remain on their guard, Estonia warned. Slovenia was of the view that the bridging clause could lead to a compromise that is acceptable to all member states. It also raised the possibility of transferring maternity leave, dividing it into two periods: before and after the birth; and extending it from 14 to 16 weeks. In line with the principle of equal opportunities, any extension of maternity and paternity leave is a way of achieving a better work-life balance. Austria says that the maternity leave directive is not the right place to determine paternity leave. Opinions differ because our systems differ, added Austria, whose current system is perfectly fine and allows full pay for mothers and then fathers. The difficulty in finding similarities between member states on this matter was also raised by Slovakia, which highlighted the efforts made under the Hungarian Presidency to find a compromise between the Council and the EP. Similar comments came from Malta which sees the ultimate goal as being the health and safety of workers who have recently given birth and who are breastfeeding. Malta wondered how a one-size-fits-all directive could be adopted given the mosaic of national systems. It judged the EP amendments to be unrealistic and said they did not provide a basis for negotiation. The same went for the Czech Republic, which said that, in view of the differences along member states, a compromise in the Council would be difficult to find. It called on the Commission to consider withdrawing its proposal. The amendments to the directive must not focus on the length of maternity leave or on salary, Latvia said. The bridging clause had to be ruled out because it posed too many problems. Latvia called for impact assessment studies to shed more light on the implications for member states in terms of cost and practicalities of the EP amendments. Portugal said it backed the directives' present text to ensure the health and safety of working women and equal opportunities for women and men. It supports Reding in her re-assessment of this issue. Protecting pregnant women and young mothers is all well and good, said Denmark, pointing out that the current directive provides mothers with protection! For Denmark, more women have to be brought onto the labour market. The issue will be difficult to take forward. Belgium said that there was no need at the present moment to think about impact studies and that the Council should come to its position. Italy said that a highly developed social culture in the area of motherhood was the base on which the growth and development of future generations is built. “We are acting at national and regional levels. We have responsibility in this area. A parliamentary vote would cause us serious problems; much more than the Commission proposal! A two-week paternity leave would be too heavy a burden”, Italy said.
On behalf of the S&D Group in the European Parliament, Edite Estrela slammed the lack of progress made by member states on modernising existing maternity leave legislation, regretting that some had “expressed a disrespectful position” towards the Parliament. “Member states are not taking into due consideration the large majority reach in the Parliament (in Strasbourg in October 2010) or the latest results of the latest Eurobarometer on this issue” (78%, or almost eight out of 10 people surveyed, supported fully paid maternity leave of 20 weeks). Estrela said she hoped that, under the Polish Presidency, a balanced compromise would be reached. Britta Thomsen (Denmark), who is a member of the women's rights committee, felt it was “totally unacceptable that a blocking minority of member states can just freeze any decision and throw the proposals into the dustbin”.
For the Greens/EFA, Jill Evans (UK) was also critical that 11 member states, including the United Kingdom wanted to “water down and delay the proposals”. Evans, who voted for the Parliamentary proposals in October of last year, said: “By trying to block this progressive law, the UK government is seriously undermining women's participation in the workforce. … The UK has 52 weeks' maternity leave but this is not fully paid and so poorer paid workers can be forced back to work sooner than necessary. 20 weeks' maternity leave on full pay would strike the right balance. Helping women to stay economically active would actually aid economic competitiveness in the longer term”, she argued. For the EP debate of 20 October 2010, see EUROPE 10240 and the Council debate of 6 December 2010, see EUROPE 10271. (G.B./transl.rt)