The Parental Leave and Leave on Grounds of Force Majeure Law, Law 47(I)/2012, came into force on the 18.05.2012 and repealed and replaced the previous legislation regarding parental leave and force majeure in Cyrpus.
It was enacted for the purposes of harmonising Cyprus law with Council Directive 2010/18/EC on the revised framework agreement on parental leave and Council Directive 97/80/EC.
Amongst other provisions, the new law increased the period of unpaid parental leave for each parent from 13 to 18 weeks and to 23 weeks for widows and widowers.
The new law also offers the opportunity for one parent to transfer two weeks of their parental leave to the other – the previous legislation allowed only for the father to transfer leave to the mother only.
Parental leave can be taken for children of up to eight years old, or in the case of adopted children, until their 12th year.
The new law doubled the penalties previously provided for employers who were in breach of the provisions – from €3,417 to €7,500.
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Theodorou Law is a Cyprus law firm with Cyprus lawyers and other legal experts on legal matters involving Cyprus law, EU law and international law.The above should be used as a source of general information only. It is not intended to give a definitive statement of the law/
