EU Debate Woman Board Quotas

Studies by a BBC News show in May discovered that less than a third of the UK’s most influential jobs are held by women. This sparked a large debate and a lot of controversy, with calls to the European Union to debate the matter.

EU Commissioners are preparing to go into lengthy talks about the issue of what is perceived to be international institutional sexism. There are already proposals on how to remedy the situation, with one of the more drastic ideas to make it mandatory for companies to reserve 40% of their board seats for women. EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding [pictured] will present the female quotas proposal in Strasbourg on Tuesday.

Several countries have objected to the idea, including the UK, and are calling for it to be removed. Currently Belgium, France, Iceland, Italy and Spain have all introduced quota laws and Norway (not a member of the EU) having a 40% quota since 2003. If Ms Reding’s proposals are accepted by the European Parliament, the quota will become mandatory on all 27 member states in the EU.

This debate comes after the European Parliament criticised the European Central Bank for their lack of female candidates on the executive board. The European Council had recently posted Yves Mersch candidacy to the opening. The European Parliament pointed out that this would leave the ECB executive board all male until the end of 2018. A parliamentary committee passed a resolution 21 votes to 12, with 13 abstentions, calling for the withdrawal of the candidacy.

The UK has one of the highest rates of female board members on FTSE 100 companies, with 16%. The government has demanded that the largest listed companies must have a minimum of 25% of female directors by 2015.

Opponents to a mandatory quota claim that voluntary targets and continuing efforts to change attitudes would be a more effective and long-term resolution to the problem of a male-dominated executive population.

Even with a positive decision at the debate this Tuesday, it would be a while before we saw quota laws begin to take effect on EU companies.