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 do not 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 said.
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.