Better work-life balance is not a luxury. It improves workers’ quality of life, it enables the better sharing of caring responsibilities and it can help reduce gender gaps in pay, employment and pensions.

This is why I was proud to lead negotiations on the Work-Life Balance Directive on behalf of the European Parliament.

The directive is a massive step forward for the rights of families across Malta and Gozo. By design, it is meant to encourage the involvement of the second parent in children’s upbringing. An improved sharing of caring responsibilities, aided by improved work-life balance measures, has been shown to bring benefits both socially and economically.

First of all, it is a big step for fathers, who can now enjoy 10 days of paid paternal leave upon the birth of their child. What used to be just one day is now a more considerate policy that includes both parents in what is among the happiest moments for a couple.

This policy is child-oriented and applies non-discriminately, meaning it applies for same-sex couples and irrespective of marital status.

In the longer term, both parents will have two months each of paid parental leave, with an additional two months that can be transferred between parents. This should be taken flexibly until the child turns eight, rather than in one big chunk. In addition, and to ensure the least disruption in both family and work life, parents of children under the age of eight will have the right to request more flexible working arrangements.

The point is to try and mellow the choice between family and work life, especially for women. Traditionally, women are forced to take the most leave to raise the children while the father serves as breadwinner. With better work-life policies, a section of the workforce has a better opportunity to remain at work.

This can be a decisive step in reducing the gaps between men and women, namely in the discrepancy between opportunities for promotions thanks to prolonged periods of time off work and domestic responsibilities that get in the way of mothers’ careers.

A work-life balance regime can, therefore, address gender gaps in pay, employment and,  down the line, in pension entitlements.

Work-life balance measures cannot be read separately from each other and the directive is meant to be read as a toolkit toward achieving better gender equality and a better work-life balance for our working families.

In 2019, I sat down with EU governments for the last time with an agreed deal: to establish a core minimum of rights for working families. Naturally, there were concerns, especially from small businesses that had to understand how this would impact their business. We made the case that it was more efficient to keep workers than the replace them and we found that, in many cases, having more flexible working arrangements did not increase administrative costs for businesses.

Earlier this year, with the transposition deadline approaching, the Nationalist Party met with stakeholders to design the best way to transpose the directive into an effective framework of rights for our families.

We proposed going beyond the minimum. This means 15 working days for new fathers, instead of the minimum 10. The PN also proposed fully supporting the wages of those on parental leave, a measure financed by the state and not by employers. We saw the directive as an opportunity to invest in families, especially after the pandemic.

In the longer term, both parents will have two months each of paid parental leave- David Casa

Far from going overboard, three weeks would be fairly average for a European country. The existing one day of paternal leave was among the most meagre. In fact, as of 2018, a year before the directive entered into force, 17 member states already had policies in place matching at least the minimum that would be established in the directive.

Unfortunately, the Labour government chose not to have a debate on this. Parliament was excluded and a legal notice was announced in the middle of summer. Provisions were the bare minimum that the directive offered.

Additional restrictions meant some rights could not be enjoyed flexibly and, therefore, risked going against the spirit of the directive.

On parental leave, for instance, the government chose to compensate parents at sick pay levels, removing any incentive to move away from the status quo and, in effect, encouraging women to stay at home and men to stay at work.

The government, simply by sticking to the minimum, did not do any favours for employers either. By announcing that it would be SMEs to entirely finance this leave after 2023, Labour departed from the European orthodoxy of having leave funded at least partially by the state through social insurance.

All the government said was that “this was only the beginning”. But debates should happen before the publication of a new law, not after.

The transposition should not be a missed opportunity but a chance to do much better. We should use the directive to deliver the best we can to our working families.

In a press conference the PN gave last Tuesday, our message to the government was to go back to the drawing board. Social partners deserve to be listened to.

And our families deserve better than rushed policies.

David Casa, a Nationalist Party MEP, was the European Parliament’s lead negotiator on the Work-Life Balance Directive.