During the recent 2026 budget debate Prime Minister Luc Mercelina said his cabinet supports expanding paternity leave (see last Tuesday’s newspaper) for civil servants from two to 10 days. There is currently a discrepancy between the Civil Code that provides for seven days and the “Regeling Vakantie en Vrijstelling van Dienst” (RVVD) that stipulates two.
In late August 2019 Parliament approved an amendment increasing maternity leave for women from 12 to 16 weeks and introducing a paternity leave for men of seven days. The latter was introduced in October 2022.
The initial proposal had been for 14 paid days, but due to lack of support from Social and Health Insurances SZV and other stakeholders a compromise was reached. Reference has since been made to the French side, where new fathers have been entitled to 28 days of paid leave since 2021, while Barbados introduced three weeks of statutory paid paternity leave in 2025 and in the Netherlands they receive one week of full pay followed by five weeks at 70% salary.
According to Mercelina (General Affairs) discussions on going to 10 days paternity leave in government are now taking place with the Committee of Civil Servant Unions (CCSU). Keep in mind that doing so would again create a disparity with male private sector workers who have only seven.
The reasoning behind all this, namely involving fathers more in the birth and early development of their children, obviously makes good sense. However, it can also lead to significant loss of productivity.
After all, the prime minister himself has emphasised a lack of personnel capacity and human resources in the public sector, and is even considering hiring recruitment agencies to fill vacancies. Giving both employed mothers and dads additional time off does not exactly help in that sense, because -at the end the day- one still needs to get the job done.
