The Chamber of Commerce and Industry has urged the government to reject EU proposals for extending maternity leave to 20 weeks.

The proposals were given a first reading at the European Parliament yesterday and now needs approval by national governments.

The Chamber said the EU Parliament vote was a severe blow to business.

"Increasing maternity leave from 14 to 20 weeks will result in a huge threat to EU competitiveness," it said.

"It is the economic model that sustains the social one. Placing the economic model at risk in favour of the social model does not seem prudent – certainly in these fragile economic circumstances."

The Chamber said it was convinced that the increase in maternity leave would be counter productive to young women seeking work across all categories of employment.

"It will serve to fuel higher discrimination not least through a widening of the wage gap that already exists between genders. Moreover it would reinforce the reality of the ‘glass ceiling’ phenomenon in career paths for women. To this end, women could not realistically aspire to occupy the highest positions in business and at the same time absent themselves from work for long periods at a stretch.

"In addition, the difficulties in Malta will be felt more acutely because systems of temporary workers agencies and child-care facilities are not fully developed. Presently, there is very little in terms of temping agencies and child-care facilities do not extend beyond office-hours."

COSTS

The Malta Business Bureau - of which the Chamber forms part - calculated that the proposal could cost the economy €7.5m in terms of value added per year, equivalent to 0.18% of GDP. Of this, the cost to business would amount to €5.3m a year. In addition, introducing two weeks of paternity leave would cost the economy an additional €4.8m a year, equivalent to 0.12% of GDP. Of this, the annual cost to business would be €3.7m. All in all, the annual burden on Malta’s economy would be in excess of €12 million every year.