Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-04-Speech-1-105"
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"en.20090504.16.1-105"2
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".
Madam President, I am sorry that the Commissioner is opposed to the key amendment of my report, supported by all the political groups, calling for assisting spouses and recognised partners to be entitled to the same social protection as self-employed workers on a mandatory basis and not just at their request. Experience proves that, if they are not obliged to make social security contributions, they do not, for the same unfortunate reason that you mentioned, Commissioner: cost.
Of course, social protection costs money, for self-employed workers as well as for employed workers. The desire to save money on social contributions is a huge mistake that must be avoided.
Of course, if, within a Member State, there is no social protection for self-employed workers, we cannot demand that it be made obligatory for their partners. But partners should be entitled to it at their request. I shall make an oral amendment on this, in line with Mr Cocilovo.
Allow me to add a few words on maternity protection, because our position has been very badly misunderstood. If we want to strengthen maternity protection by increasing maternity leave, we should not forget that extending it to 18 weeks, of which only a third would coincide with the obligatory six weeks to be taken after the birth, goes against the objective of better protection for the health of the mother and the baby.
That is why, in our opinion, the best solution would be six obligatory weeks and an increase to 20 weeks for multiple births and breastfeeding. Let us not forget the problems of recruitment and promotion that women of childbearing age already face.
With regard to age, it is absurd to wish fathers to take the same leave as that of pregnant women. Of course, Madam President, the increasing infertility of men in Europe is worrying, but not as much, in my opinion, as the continued inequalities between men and women in the sharing of family responsibilities, as this inequality is the reason why many women decide not to have children. In addition, we will not solve Europe’s demographic problem through over-protection, as this only serves to make women unemployable."@en1
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