EU: last step before the final agreement on parental leave

Improved parental leave. The text to be adopted grants parental leave of at least four months – instead of three – until the child is eight. The current directive provides that this right is individual and cannot be transferred to the other parent. This is aimed at encouraging fathers to take a parental leave which would otherwise be lost. The ETUC wanted to toughen this principle to improve the equal share of family responsibilities between the two parents, but it bothered some Member States (mostly in northern Europe). A compromise states that one month cannot be transferred. Another novelty is that the draft agreement asks Member States to “assess the need to adjust the conditions for access and modalities of application of parental leave to the needs of parents of children with a disability or a long-term illness” as well as “the specific needs of adoptive parents.” This right is improved because more workers are entitled to it. To that end, the draft provides that people with a fixed-term contract, part-time and workers cannot be deprived of it. In addition, it states that the number of successive fixed-term contracts performed by a worker should be taken into account for the purpose of calculating the qualifying period. Regarding payment, the ETUC wants to improve the directive which says nothing about it, and include a reference to the remuneration the employee perceives before leaving. This was a blocking factor for the employers’ delegation, but negotiators found a compromise: a recital and a provision ask the Member States to take into account the “income among other factors in the take-up of parental leave when implementing this agreement.”