Mrs Blair wins EU support for parental leave

Date: 12/04/01

By John Shelley

EMPLOYMENT Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou has warned UK Prime Minister Tony Blair that she will take his government to court unless he listens to his wife Cherie over time off work for parents.

In a move that will embarrass the British government, Diamantopoulou has sided with Mrs Blair against her husband in a row over parental leave, saying the UK has illegally implemented Union laws.

Diamantopoulou says that because the British law excludes parents whose children were born before December 1999, more than three million parents are being denied the right to take time off.

Under the community rules, they should be entitled to 13 weeks unpaid leave at any stage until the child's fifth birthday.

The issue caused controversy last year after Mrs Blair, acting as a lawyer for the UK Trade Union Congress, launched a challenge in the High Court against the government's refusal to backdate the leave entitlement.

Unless Britain changes its rules Tony Blair will face a challenge from the Commission. Diamantopoulou's officials have written a last-chance letter, or 'reasoned opinion', to the UK government saying it must shape up or face action in the European Court of Justice.

"The UK is still applying a cut-off which deprives people of the benefits of the directive and which the Commission believes is in breach of the law," said Diamantopoulou's spokesman Andrew Fielding.

The British government has implemented the EU directive on parental leave through its own Employment Relations Act from 1999. But only parents of children who were born on or after 15 December of that year, when the law came into force, are entitled to parental leave.

"There is nothing in the directive or the framework agreement that would allow an additional condition of this nature," says Fielding.

Employment Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou has warned UK Prime Minister Tony Blair that she will take his government to court unless he listens to his wife Cherie over time off work for parents. The issue caused controversy in 2000 after Mrs Blair, acting as a lawyer for the UK Trade Union Congress, launched a legal challenge in the High Court against the government's refusal to backdate the leave entitlement.