Work resumes Tuesday, September 15. Several of the bill’s main measures have already been approved, from caregiver support to new benefits for maternity and parents.
The Grand and General Council (Consiglio Grande e Generale) will reconvene next week, with the bill on family, maternity and measures to counter the country’s declining birth rate among the first items to be finalised. Debate on the text, suspended on Wednesday, September 9, will resume on Tuesday, September 15.
The measure has already cleared much of its second reading. Among the changes approved so far is the extension of maternity support to women who are unemployed and without access to social safety nets, alongside a doubling of paid paternity leave, which rises from 10 to 20 days.
Parental leave has also been strengthened, with higher allowances and recognition of leave periods for career progression purposes. Lawmakers gave the go-ahead to specific support—up to 18 months—for non-working student mothers, as well as new paid leave for parents to accompany children up to age 14 to medical appointments, tests and vaccinations.
One of the most significant steps is the introduction into San Marino’s legal framework of the figure of the family caregiver, with an initial cap of 50 beneficiaries and a spending ceiling of one million euros. The rules have also been expanded to make it easier to obtain leave to care for family members with severe disabilities or illnesses who live in Italy.
Council members also approved a new information point for families, designed as a single reference point for navigating the range of services and support available.
On family allowances, however, the Government has scrapped the income brackets originally proposed: future modulation of support will instead be tied to the full rollout of the ICEE (the equivalent economic means-testing indicator), with the stated aim of directing more resources toward the households that need them most.
On Tuesday, the Council will pick up where it left off, working through the remaining articles with the goal of reaching a final vote on the reform.
