On Saturday, 21 March 2020, Government Decision No. 217/2020 for the application of the provisions of Law No 217/2020. 19/2020 on the granting of days off to parents for the supervision of children in the event of temporary closure of educational establishments.
What clarifications does the government’s decision make?
Number of days off granted by the legislator
Law 19/2020 provides that the Government will specify the maximum number of days off that parents can benefit for the supervision of children, by Government decision, issued in each of the hypotheses considered by the Law (e.g. when there are adverse weather conditions or other extreme situations).
The Government’s decision published on Saturday clarifies: employers will grant paid days off to parents on all working days until the end of the state of emergency decreed by the authorities, except working days during the school holidays. Of course, no days off will be granted either on weekends or on public holidays (when schools would have been closed anyway).
Thus, given that the state of emergency will expire on 16 April (unless extended by the authorities), it follows that more days off can be granted until 4 April 2020. We recall that the daily amount of the allowance will be 75% of the basic salary corresponding to a working day, but no more than the daily correspondent of 75% of the average gross earnings (i.e. about 190 lei gross daily).
Beneficiaries
We recall that OUG 30/2020 has clarified that this Law does not apply when one of the parents: (a) is entitled to parental leave; (b) is the personal assistant of one of the dependent children; (c) are on leave/unpaid leave; (d) persons who are technically unemployed or the spouse of such persons; (e) where the other parent does not earn income from wages and salaries, income from self-employment, income from intellectual property rights, income from agricultural activities, forestry and fish farming, subject to income tax under the Tax Code.
Internal procedure: Employee’s request and necessary documentation
The application which the parent who wishes to benefit from these days off must submit to the employer shall be accompanied by the following documents:
- statement on his own responsibility of the other parent, from which it results that he has not applied at his place of work for days off which would be due to him under Law No. 19/2020 and that it is not in one of the above mentioned exceptional situations;
- copy of the birth certificate of the child/children.
Please note that the processing of such personal data of employees and their family members, carried out for the purpose of granting days off under this law, will also have to comply with the provisions of the legislation on data protection. Given that the obligation of this procedure is laid down by the legislature itself, we consider that the legal basis for the processing of personal data necessary for the implementation of these measures should be the legal obligation of employers, but still, processing will have to comply with GDPR principles (such as data minimisation, storage time, prior employee information – information notes sent to employees must be checked to ensure that they are sufficient in this hypothesis).
Procedure for the settlement of the allowance by the employer
In order to settle the amounts for the payment of the allowance for these days off, the employer must submit an application to the county employment agency, respectively the municipality of Bucharest, in whose territorial area the employer/branch/workstation operates.
The application must contain the following mandatory elements: the employer’s identification details, the employer’s e-mail address, the name of the legal representative, the number of employees for whom the amount was requested.
The application must be accompanied by the following documents:
- the list of employees who have benefited from the days off and the allowance granted during that period;
- copies of the payment statements showing the grant of the allowance;
- the declaration on the employer’s legal representative’s own responsibility stating that the list presented at the first bullet point contains persons who fulfil the conditions laid down in Law No 1/2002; 19/2020 (Annex 1 to the Government decision);
- proof of payment of contributions and taxes relating to the month in which the allowance was paid.
These documents accompanying the application shall, in principle, be sent by e-mail to the relevant employment agencies no later than 30 days after the date of payment of contributions and taxes relating to the allowance. In view of the mandatory wording of the law, we consider that if this deadline is exceeded, the employer will no longer be able to benefit from the settlement of allowances from the State budget.
The amounts paid by the employer as compensation shall be settled within 60 calendar days of the date of registration of the application accompanied by the documents specified above.
