At a joint meeting on Monday 21 September, the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) re-tabled the issue of women being included on management boards of major European companies.
The European Commission’s proposal in this area – a draft directive on ‘gender balance among non-executive directors of companies’ was agreed upon in the European Parliament in 2013, but still faces reservations from several member states in the EU Council.
The text, which was presented in 2012, aimed to ensure that women constitute a minimum of 40% of the members of corporate management boards by 2020 in respect of the private sector, and by 2018 for the public sector.
According to the latest Eurostat figures, women now account for 28.4% of board members.
Resumption of negotiations
Many speakers regretted that a blocking minority in the EU Council was preventing the initiative from succeeding, and they called on the institution to resume its work.
Juliane Seifert, State Secretary in the German Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, said that the German Presidency of the EU Council had been “challenged by many countries who felt it was time to move forward and bring the directive to a successful conclusion”.
The Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, gave assurances that relaunching these negotiations would be “one of the main tasks” of her mandate and would be one of the priorities of the European Commission’s gender equality strategy (see EUROPE 12440/7).
“A vital piece of legislation”
Linda Senden, Professor of European Law at the University of Utrecht and expert on gender equality, explained why this proposal is, according to her research, “a vital piece of legislation”.
Roughly ten Member States do not have measures in this area: several have opted for self-regulation by companies; some simply set targets; others have adopted legislation with quotas that are supported by sanctions.
The latter approach is the only one that has led to “significant progress”, Ms Senden said.
She was of the opinion that one of the advantages of the proposed Directive was that it set a level of ambition for all Member States alongside necessary sanctions. The legislative proposal also showed a “delicate balance” between EU expectations and Member State competences.
This point was questioned by Margarita de la Pisa Carrión (ECR, Spain), who was of the opinion that the EU was “not created to discuss these kinds of issues” and should instead focus its efforts on the health challenges arising from the pandemic.
However, a debate on the state of play of the directive has been announced for a European Parliament plenary session in October. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)