A parliamentary committee has rejected, at first reading, a plan to have the state pay health insurance contributions for mothers during the two years of maternity leave. The vote was 8 for, 8 against and 3 abstentions, which is not enough to pass.

Venko Sabrutev of We Continue the Change and a group of MPs proposed the changes to the Health Insurance Act. They say the state should pay these contributions, as it already does for students and pensioners.

Sabrutev believes this would ease the load on employers. He says firms often avoid hiring young women because maternity leave costs them money, and small businesses feel it more.

Vaska Milusheva of Progressive Bulgaria voted against. She said the bill does not solve the problems of young families on low incomes, who find it hard to combine work with raising children. She said it gives mothers no money and treats them unequally: it covers women with employment contracts but not the self-insured.

GERB-SDS and Democratic Bulgaria backed the proposal. Iliyana Zhekova of GERB-SDS said the whole of society gains from maternity leave, so the cost should not fall only on the firm where the mother works. Ana Bodakova of Democratic Bulgaria said Bulgarian women give birth after the age of 27 on average, and in Sofia after 30.

Levent Ali of the DPS called the direction a good one. He said maternity is a matter for the state and society, not directly for the employer, because the state wants more children to be born.

The labour and social policy ministry and the health ministry do not support the bill.