On the 30th of July, the European Commission adopted a proposal to broaden the entitlement of workers to take parental leave, increasing the amount of leave from three to four months and making this right available to all employees, regardless of their contract type.

If the proposal is accepted by the member states of the European Council, it will give legal weight to an agreement recently formed by European trades unions and employer’s organisations, which was signed on the 18th of June 2009.

Intended to improve the work/life balance of European workers, the proposal seeks to:

• Extend the current period of parental leave from 3 to 4 months, with at least one of those months being strictly non-transferrable between parents.
• Parents returning from parental leave will be able to request changes to their working hours or shift patterns, which employers must seriously consider and respond to.
• Give the right of parental leave to all part-time, fixed term and agency workers, leaving open the provision of a qualification period that may not be longer than one year.
• Protect workers against unfair dismissal or less favourable treatment because they have taken parental leave.

In cases involving adoption or children with disabilities or long-term illness, governments, employers and unions would have an obligation to assess the specific needs of the parents involved.

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