By 2 August this year, Poland must implement the so-called Work-Life Balance Directive (i.e. Directive (EU) 2019/1158 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on work-life balance for parents and carers).

One of the basic premises of the Directive is to promote measures in the area of equality between men and women with regard to labour market opportunities and treatment at work. This objective is to be achieved by measures which encourage men to share equally childcare responsibilities, including, among others, the introduction by Member States of a non-transferable 2-month portion of parental leave. This means that if a parent does not use this portion, the other parent will not be able to use it.

It is still unclear how Poland will ultimately implement this solution. The following possibilities seem to exist. Firstly, the introduction of a non-transferable paid 2-month portion of the parental leave (the Supreme Court expressed the opinion that the equivalent of the leave referred to in the Directive in Polish labour law is the child care leave, not the parental leave). The second scenario is to extend the current parental leave by 2 months (i.e. from 32 to 40 weeks). The third option is to guarantee a two-month non-transferable portion of parental leave to the other parent within the current parental leave entitlement (i.e. 32 weeks).

The government has not yet presented a bill amending the Labour Code in this respect (so far, only an MP bill has been submitted to the Sejm). Preliminary announcements made by the Ministry of Labour indicate that the amendment bill will have a longer vacatio legis - it is possible that the new regulations will not come into force until 1 January 2023.
 

Find more in the PRO HR February 2022.