Bulgaria’s Government proposed to cut paid maternity leave in half, from the current 410 days to 225, as one of 37 anti-crisis measures to be discussed with employers and unions, Bulgarian media reports said on March 17 2010, but within hours the claims were rejected as untrue by the Finance Ministry and the Cabinet.
 
The step was reported to have been proposed by a working group set up on the instructions of Prime Minister Boiko Borissov.
 
The proposal would see maternity leave allowances being calculated not on the basis of the salary in the year before childbirth but on two or three years of employment. The intention is to ensure that women pay insurance on their full salary from the time that they join a company, and not only when they become pregnant, Standart said.
 
None of the measures would be tabled in Parliament before being discussed by the tripartite council of Government, employers and unions, Labour Minister Totyu Mladenov was quoted as saying.

On March 17, the Finance Ministry denied that the proposals were official or had emanated from the ministry. This was backed up a Cabinet statement later the same day, on similar lines.
 
Reports about the anti-crisis measures led to a hostile reception in some media and political circles.
 
Podkrepa labour confederation deputy leader Dimitar Manolov was quoted by mass-circulation daily Trud as describing them as "imbecilic" while Douma, a daily closely aligned to the opposition socialists, the measures were called "monstrous".
 
Former social policy minister and current leader of the National Movement for Stability and Progress Hristina Hristova was quoted by Bulgarian news agency Focus as saying that the severity of the crisis should be shared by all, and should not fall solely on the most vulnerable people in society, mothers.
 
Mothers needed support from the state to raise their children, not to mention the context of Bulgaria’s other serious crisis, its demographic deficit, Hristova said.
 
In December 2008, Bulgaria’s Parliament approved an increase in paid maternity leave from nine months to 12 months as of January 1 2009. At the same time, Parliament instituted a rule allowing fathers to take 15 days’ paternity leave, between the sixth and the 12th month after the birth of the child and only if the mother decided not to take maternity leave.
 
It was this decision in December 2008 that saw maternity pay based on the 12 months preceding the birth of the child. Previously it was based on the previous six months.

Were Bulgaria to reduce paid maternity leave to 225 days - about seven-and-a-half months - this would still be longer than the new rule envisaged by the European Union.
 
Earlier in March 2010, the European Council adopted a directive extending workers' rights to parental leave from three to four months for each parent.
 
At least one of the four months cannot be transferred to the other parent, meaning that it is lost if not taken), encouraging fathers to take the leave, the European Council said in a statement on March 8 2010.
 
"The new directive seeks to better match professional and family life and to promote gender equality on the labour market," the European Council statement said.
 
It implements the revised framework agreement on parental leave concluded by the social partners at European level.
 
Other new elements compared to the existing directive include the clarification that all workers are covered, regardless of the type of their contract (for example, fixed-term, part-time and temporary agency workers).
 
The new directive also provides for better protection against discrimination and ensures a smoother return to work.
 
A worker applying for or taking parental leave must not be treated less favourably for doing so.
 
When returning from parental leave, workers may request changes to their working hours for a limited period. Employers must consider and respond to such requests, taking into account both employers' and workers' needs.
 
Member states have two years in which to transpose the new directive into national law, the European Council said.
 
On March 16, a meeting of the European Parliament’s women’s rights committee co-ordinators requested an assessment of the likely impact of prolonging maternity leave to 20 weeks on full pay and introducing two weeks' paternity leave EU-wide.
 
The plenary session vote on the proposal has been postponed from March 25 to May 18 2010.
 
"My political group asked that the vote be postponed to enable us to build a broader consensus in plenary. I have moreover received several requests from member states expressing doubts, notably as to the costs of this directive. I therefore support this proposal", said rapporteur, Portuguese socialist Edite Estrela.
 
The impact assessment study will look at social, environmental, economic and budgetary costs and benefits prolonging maternity leave on full pay and introducing two weeks' paid paternity leave. Initially, the ECR group had requested an assessment of the impact of prolonging maternity leave to 20 weeks on full pay.
 
This will be commissioned by the European Parliament from an external company, and will take four to eight weeks to do.
 
A European Parliament statement said that, in line with the European Council/Parliament/Commission inter-institutional agreement on better lawmaking and Parliament's conference of committee chairs guidelines, women's rights committee co-ordinators requested a first-reading impact assessment on the "substantive amendments" adopted by the committee on February 23 2010.