Swedish minister brings baby to EU meeting, a first for the bloc

LUXEMBOURG, June 25 - EU governments' ministers gathered for a long day's discussion of climate change policies on Thursday were surprised by a fresh-faced participant at their negotiating table: a three-month-old baby.

Swedish climate minister Romina Pourmokhtari brought her son, Adam, to the EU council meeting in Luxembourg, to highlight the benefits of parental leave policies which don't force women to choose between work and family responsibilities.

"I wanted to showcase being an example of not having to make that choice. Which, of course, also requires having a partner that's not a dinosaur, someone who's quite modern and up for it to tag along," Pourmokhtari told Reuters.

An EU Council official confirmed it was the first time, to the institution's knowledge, that a baby had joined a meeting of EU ministers.

Pourmokhtari, 30, was the youngest government minister in Sweden's history when she took office in 2022. She has just returned from parental leave, while her husband is on leave until Sweden's election in September and travelled with her to Luxembourg to care for Adam.

Sweden has one of the world's most generous parental leave policies, funded by the country's system of high taxes, which has become a political flashpoint in the election campaign.

Parents receive about 16 months of paid leave in total. Of this, 90 days are reserved for each parent individually and cannot be transferred to the other. If a parent does not take their allotted portion, those days are forfeited.

These non-transferable periods — often called “dad months” — were introduced to encourage fathers to spend more time with their children.

Pourmokhtari credits this policy, and support from her team, with making it "much less controversial" for her husband to care for Adam while she works.

She said supportive policies were not just a question of spending taxes on longer leave periods -- and urged governments to also consider more flexible rules on parents sharing leave and affordable childcare.

"It's creating a lot of value that shouldn't be underestimated. Value that might not always be economic -- but in the end, might also be economic, in not having burnt-out workers," she said, referring to the burden on many parents struggling to juggle work and family.

Krzysztof Bolesta, Poland's deputy climate minister, said it had been no trouble having a baby in a political meeting.

"I think it's great," he told Reuters. "It's not a handicap, it's just a part of life." REUTERS