Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-25-Speech-2-591-000"
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"en.20111025.31.2-591-000"2
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"Madam President, I am grateful for the Polish Presidency’s efforts and courage in handling this dossier, and I must say that the news we have heard about last week’s meeting of the ministers for social affairs were much more pessimistic than what we have heard from you. Let me quote from the news. We found only one item, and, as I said, it is not very optimistic: ‘The message of the meeting was clear: Member States simply said no to the extreme proposal of the European Parliament’.
The analysis of the situation – and the situation we are in is indeed very complicated – has two dimensions, one of which is procedural. How can we come out of the deadlock that you also spoke about, observing the rules and competences? The other is a matter of substance: what happens to mothers, what happens to the directive on maternity leave?
As regards procedures, to be honest, we have been waiting for a move by the Council for over a year. We know that at first reading, the Council’s response is not subject to any deadlines, and this delay may be the reason why Parliament opted for a somewhat unorthodox method and put a question to the Council in order to receive information, naturally without interfering with the competence of the Council. We regret that we were unable to extend the rights of mothers and failed to improve their living conditions.
However, it was difficult to interpret the news, also coming from this informal meeting, that the Council refused to adopt a Council position for the proposal. This leaves the question: what is the next move? Can we expect a position from the formal ministerial meeting?
As for the matter of substance, it would be easy to turn the situation to our advantage and say that we have warned you before, because, as you also know, Parliament was fairly divided on the issue of maternity leave. Our aim is not to revel in ‘we told you so’. What we have to focus on as our objective is to protect maternity and improve the living conditions of mothers. I believe that we all agree on this.
To those colleagues who are revolted by the lack of progress and say that maternity leave is the human right of mothers, I would point out that a relevant article is included in the revised Social Charter of the Council of Europe – Article 8 on the right of the protection of maternity – which states that signatory states must grant working women at least 14 weeks of paid leave, disbursed from social security benefits or other budgetary resources.
There is a provision in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, too, under the heading ‘Family and Work’, which guarantees the right of mothers to protection against dismissal from their jobs and paid maternity leave.
Madam President, allow me to add one final idea. I would like to say that development is so divergent from one Member State to another that it is extremely difficult to find common minimum standards, but ‘passerelle clauses’, the transitional clauses that would allow for the combination of parental and maternity leave, may be the way forward."@en1
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