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EU Directive to give self-employed workers new benefits
Self-employed workers and their partners are to receive the right to maternity leave and pension benefits following the introduction of a new European Directive earlier this month.
The Directive grants self-employed women, assisting spouses and life partners of self-employed workers a maternity allowance and a leave period of at least 14 weeks, should they choose to take it.
Assistant spouses and life partners will also have the right to social security coverage such as pensions on an equal basis as formal self-employed workers, if the member state offers such protection.
It is hoped the Directive, which came into force on 5 August 2010, will boost female entrepreneurship throughout the EU.
Commenting, Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Justice, said: ‘With the entry into force of this new law, Europe takes an important step forward in terms of increasing social protection and providing equal economic and social rights for self-employed men and women, and their partners’.
Member states will have to introduce the new entitlement into their national legislation within the next two years.