Norway royal baby sparks leave row

By Lars Bevanger
BBC, in Oslo

A row has erupted in Norway over whether Crown Prince Haakon should take paternity leave when his child is born later this month.

The baby will be King Harald's first grandson.

Norway prides itself for being at the forefront of sexual equality and Crown Prince Haakon is in many ways what you could call "a new man".

The couple have courted controversy in the past

He married a commoner, Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, who was also a single mother at the time.

When the two become parents to their first child together, he wants to take as much time off work as possible.

Norwegian fathers are entitled and encouraged to take four weeks of paid paternity leave.

Equal rights campaigners have said it would be an enormous boost to their cause if a royal made use of that rule and the crown prince himself at first signalled he would.

But then his father, King Harald, became ill with bladder cancer and will be off sick for months. As reigning monarch, the crown prince is obliged to attend a government conference scheduled for the very day his child is due.

Constitutional experts say there is no way around it. The crown prince is keeping silent on the matter. People here are overwhelmingly in favour of his being present at the birth and that he should take time off to be with the baby.

All eyes here will be on the birth and on how Crown Prince Haakon deals with the parental and constitutional dilemma.