"It is the state and not employers who takes on the costs"

So says Myria Vassiliadou of the European Women's Lobby (EWL) of the latest tranche of legislation on maternity leave.

It is almost a perfect expression of the economically-illiterate, rent-seeking attitude of those who already receive their wages from the greater European Taxpayer. But there again looking at her proffessional background one shouldn't be too surprised about her lack of knowledge of basic stuff like this,

Myria Vassiliadou holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Sociology and Social Research and a doctorate in Sociology from the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. For over a decade, Myria worked as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus and taught undergraduate and graduate classes in Sociology, predominantly in the area of gender.
She has worked extensively in the area of gender as this relates to questions of identity politics, migration, ethno-political conflict, and the media, published in several books and journals, conducted workshops and seminars, and has been actively involved in various non-governmental organisations.

She obviously is unaware that 'States' don't have any money that they don't take from individuals and businesses. In her slightly warped world, the massive increased cost to businesses, (estimated at £7000 for small businesses by the FSB) will not affect them. The money to cover these costs will just magik into the air and fall upon their grateful heads.

Of course in reality the money will be taken from them and recycled through the apparatus of the state and be given back to them (having first had amounts rubbed off for better and wiser purposes along the way).

As the FSB makes clear,

the additional cost to the UK - estimated to be £2.5 billion - will be passed onto small businesses and could act as a deterrent for small firms to take on new members of staff.

This naturally isn't a worry for Ms Vassiliadou. Why? Because she gets her money from the EU,

For the year of 2010, the EWL’s core budget is €1.024.231,29. The EWL receives 81.65% of this amount as a grant fromt the European Commission under the PROGRESS programme. The remaining 18.35% is made up of membership fees and other independent sources of funding.

Or in other words from the taxpayer. As UKIP's Godfrey Bloom puts it,

"If this legislation had been specifically designed to discourage the employment of young women, the EU could not have done a better job.

"The costs to business will simply serve as a further reason to not employ young women of child-bearing age."

Absurd legislation such as this closes the door on opportunities for young women and consigns them to a role as second class citizens, trapped at home by the stupidity of legislators. "

It will single-handedly turn back the clock to the 1920s by forcing employers to avoid exposure to the penalties by not hiring young women."We know that these plans will cost billions but what is unquantifiable is the damage they will do to women's job prospects."