standard practice was “to grant, on an ad hoc basis, leave equivalent to the 20-week adoption leave to staff that become parents through surrogacy.”In March 2020, the EU Commission made this ad hoc rule the norm, due in part to the couple's case: “Experience has shown that, (...) in some cases of parenthood the conditions for maternity or adoption leave to be granted were not met when a newborn child arrived in a household,” the decision noted.It wasn't so easy for Merly at the European Parliament.
He was granted “10 days parental leave for the birth of one biological child”, but not 10 days for the other baby, which Sobovitz described as a “slap in the face”: the Parliament was considering that Merly had had only one son, because only one.