Brussels, 09/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Latvian Presidency is hoping an agreement on quotas of women on company boards can be reached by June. However, the Presidency makes no mention of the draft directive on maternity leave.
The Presidency has announced its intention to continue work on the controversial proposal for a 40% quota of women among non-executive directors of companies listed on stock exchanges.
The Italian Presidency pushed hard for agreement to be reached at the last Employment and Social Affairs Council (EPSCO) in December (see EUROPE 11214 and 11216). Its efforts proved to be in vain as its compromise proposal was blocked by a hard core of barely ten member states which oppose the principle of a quota (the European Parliament had already given its backing to quota plans). The Latvian Presidency is not ruling out the possibility of ministers adopting a general approach on the draft directive at the EPSCO Council on 9 March, while reserving the option of only presenting a progress report if no headway has been made in discussion. Since Latvia already has a high number of women on company boards, it may not give priority to this issue, a European source has suggested.
The draft directive on maternity leave may also not be a priority for the new Presidency. Yet the Commission has given the joint legislators six months to move forward on a matter that has been at a standstill in the Council for four years or it will withdraw its draft directive. The European Parliament adopted a mandate to negotiate 20 weeks paid maternity leave. No discussion of this subject has been put on the agendas of the forthcoming EPSCO Councils and for the moment at least no working group meetings on this matter have been planned at the Council. These are not encouraging signs, even though there is a possibility that “contact will be made”, a source has said, commenting: “There isn't much hope, the room for manoeuvre is not great”. (MD)