Companies can found private crèches that would provide early education services. The national legislation allows private institutions to provide educations services. “We have companies with over 150-200 employees and, in such a case, for such companies it would be much more feasible to open an own institution that would provide such services. Surely, this enterprise is non-for-profit and changes concerning taxes and other aspects are needed here. When there are small companies, they can together found such an institution that would take care of the children of these companies’ employees,” PR specialist of the Center “Partnerships for Development” Alina Andronache stated for IPN.
With the assistance of a legal expert, they identified and analyzed a number of options for employers to create private education institutions. The first option is to found a public association by the representative of the company that has the status of founder or is empowered to act as founder or co-founder. A private institution can be also created directly by the company or the founder, or a limited liability company, in accordance with the Law on LLCs.
In an analytical note, the CPD says international practice shows some of the states introduced fiscal stimuli for companies’ activities related to the provision of childcare services for employees. For example, Austria allows reducing the taxable revenues for companies when these either provide additional services that involve care for children or offer benefits to employees, which can be used for childcare services. France, Germany and Poland have a similar approach.
The financing of crèche services is another option. This includes either the offering of crèche tickets or financing through the “1+1” model. Private companies, including institutions of the budgetary sector, other legal entities and private individuals who become involved based on an individual work contract can finance crèche services by issuing crèche tickets. Such a practice is used in many countries.
Alina Andronache said the national legislation at the moment does not regulate the legal regime of crèche tickets, but this could be adjusted according to the meal voucher mechanism. Furthermore, the “1+1” model that implies the contribution of the employer and the contribution of the parents can also be used to finance crèche services. Under this mechanism, if someone invests 10,000 lei, the state offers 10,000 lei more, which is 1+1.
“When we speak about the support of families with children, the state should have only one goal – to ensure maximum flexibility for the parents to decide where the child will go, when they will return to work, how long the leave will be, who will look after the child while on childcare leave. The five requests we have amount to one condition: maximum flexibility for parents with children so that they can combine family life and the job,” said Alina Andronache.
