An emerging right to care in the EU: a “New Start to Support Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers”

Reconciliation between work and family life has been a prominent feature of EU discourse, policy and legislation for some time now. Accordingly, an increasingly sophisticated array of measures has been implemented. This article focuses on the most recent EU initiative, namely the New Start to Support Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers, which was announced on 26 April 2017. It entails a mixture of legislative and non-legislative measures aimed at modernising the regulation of this area. This article maintains that the New Start Initiative, although not flawless, is ground-breaking. In this proposal, the Commission is embracing a substantive and transformative approach to equality. The New Start Initiative has the potential to reconceptualise this area and to move from care as a mother-child issue to a wider one that sees care as an integral part of society.