EU Wants Minimum Quota For Women In Corporate Boardrooms
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Too few women presently sit on the boards of public companies in the European Union, said a senior EU justice official on Sunday, as the European Commission intends to press ahead with new quotas and timetables for its member states on gender equality in the corporate boardroom.
“I think we’re slowly running out of patience everywhere in Europe,” said the EU’s justice commissioner Viviane Reding in an interview with the Guardian.
Too few women presently sit on the boards of public companies in the European Union, said a senior EU justice official on Sunday, as the European Commission intends to press ahead with new quotas and timetables for its member states on gender equality in the corporate boardroom.
“I think we’re slowly running out of patience everywhere in Europe,” said the EU’s justice commissioner Viviane Reding in an interview with the Guardian.
“It’s no secret that in countries where there are legal quotas (for representation on boards), the figures have grown substantially. In countries without obligatory quotas, progress is slow,” she noted.
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The justice commissioner had, a year back, threatened to impose mandatory legislation for improving gender balance in companies if no progress had been made on the matter. Her threat now appears to be finally approaching reality, with a three-month public consultation set to take place over the appropriate quotas to be finalised.
“Personally, I don’t like quotas,” said Reding to the New York Times. “But I like what the quotas do.”
[quote]“Quotas open the way to equality and they break through the glass ceiling.”[/quote]According to recent figures by the EU, only 13.7 percent of board members at large listed companies in Europe are women, with some southern European countries such as Italy and Portugal possessing single-digit rates.
The dismal figures are also a stark reflection of Reding’s call a year ago, which targeted women making up 30 percent of companies’ board members by 2015, and 40 percent by 2020. Back then, only 24 companies agreed to sign up for that voluntary measure – “a disappointment”, stated Reding bluntly.
And while Reding appears to be adamant in bringing about for gender equality in corporate boardrooms, her proposed legislation will still require the backing of at least two-thirds of the governments in the political bloc. In a recent debate in Brussels, 24 of the EU’s 27 employment ministers warned Ms Reding against pushing ahead with binding legislation, with only Austria, Belgium and Finland backing her.
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“We think getting more women on corporate boards is important. But for now, we do not support quotas, nor do we think it’s appropriate for Europe to seek to impose them,” said Britain’s minister for employment relations, Norman Lamb to the Financial Times.
Reding herself acknowledged the difficulty in imposing a mandatory quota across Europe, though she was optimistic that public opinion would eventually turn in her favour.
“Let all those who are concerned come in and say how we should proceed,” she said, while a new poll among European citizens, which showed that 75 percent of respondents favoured legislation to balance gender representation on company boards.
