EU delays quota plan for women on boards

Controversial plans for EU minimum quotas of women on company boards were postponed last night after running into tough opposition within the European Commission.

Controversial plans for EU minimum quotas of women on company boards were postponed last night after running into tough opposition within the European Commission.

EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding, seeking backing for a law obliging companies to appoint at least 40 per cent of its top-table seats to women, insisted the battle was not over, despite lawyers warning the plan might be unenforceable.

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“I will not give up,” Ms Reding said on Twitter, but the setback will boost the move’s opponents, including UK Business Secretary Vince Cable.

Conservative MEP for London Marina Yannakoudakis, who wanted the plan scrapped, said: “It is clear that quotas imposed by the EU are unwanted and unworkable.

“I hope Ms Reding will take the hint: member states don’t want quotas, the commission doesn’t want quotas and I know many members of the European Parliament don’t want quotas.

“Let’s put a stop to this quota nonsense once and for all and talk about the real issue of supporting diversity in business.”

Ms Yannakoudakis insisted a rejection of quotas was “good for business and ultimately good for women too”.

She went on: “This interfering piece of window-dressing would have hampered business and done women a disservice, because it would fail to tackle the root causes of the under-representation of women in top jobs.”

However, Socialist MEPs said Ms Reding should carry on pressing to get the quota system into EU law.

Socialist Group leader Hannes Swoboda of Austria said: “It would be very sad and regrettable if the commission were unable to present a strong proposal on promoting gender balance in the senior management of companies because of pressure from business and prejudice.”

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Gender quotas have already been introduced in domestic law in France, Italy, Spain, Iceland and Belgium. Norway, which is not an EU member, has had a 40 per cent minimum boardroom requirement for women for a decade.

The commission says the share of company board posts held by women in EU countries averages less than 15 per cent, compared with 16 per cent in the UK.

Last month, nine countries, including the UK wrote to the European Commission, calling for the idea of compulsory quotas to be dropped.

Ms Yannakoudakis said: “In the UK the voluntary system is working, and while some member states have introduced their own system of quotas, it should be down to individual organisations and individual countries to make their own arrangements.

“Nobody should have a set of rigid rules enforced from outside.”

Bernadette Daley, of global law firm Mayer Brown, warned the plan could create “a whole raft of legal issues for businesses, creating discrimination where discrimination wasn’t an issue at all.”

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