EU Justice minister seeks legislation on gender quotas for top corporate jobs.
EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding has said she is up for an "interesting fight" within the commission itself and with nine member states opposing draft legislation on gender quotas for top jobs in companies.
The legislative proposal, which is still in drafting stage, aims at obliging publicly listed companies in the EU to reach a 40 percent quota of the "under-represented sex" on their boards by 2020. Sanctions, including fines, will be left to member states to decide and impose.
Currently, less than 14 percent of board members are women and it would take another 40 years at least to bridge the gender gap. Binding quotas are needed, Reding argues, because all voluntary systems so far have failed.
France has meanwhile come out in support of her initiative with a letter dated 21 September in which both the minister of finance, Pierre Moscovici, and the minister of gender equality, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, state their "strong support for this directive proposal" and urge the commission to speed up work on it.
http://euobserver.com/economic/117715
The UK and 8 other EU countries sent her a letter opposing the proposed legislation on national sovereignty grounds rather than on any disagreement with the purpose of the legislation. It is always interesting when the EU pursues more progressive legislation than many European countries are ready for. France (with its new Socialist government) and many other European countries are ready for this gender quota policy. We will see if the reluctant countries can defeat this proposed law or whether they will have to learn to live with it.