Women and business leadership

Less than 16% of all positions in corporate management bodies are occupied by women. This means women are heavily under-represented in the boardrooms of European companies.

The statistics is all the more surprising given that today women largely outdo men in university qualifications. Around 60% of all university diploma are awarded to women.

The issue of female under-representation in corporate boardrooms is not only a problem of gender equality.

Balancing the gender representation in the management of European companies can also lead to more balanced corporate decision making in general.

The Greens support the Commission in its work legally binding quotas for women in corporate boardrooms.

Under the current voluntary regime the rate of women in management bodies of European companies increases at only 0,5% per year.

At this pace it will take more than 50 years until 40% of all boardroom members of European companies are women.

We demand a quota to achieve this objective until 2020.

The Greens succeeded several important compromises to allow the adoption of the text by a large majority.

By introducing a roll-call vote we succeeded to split the conservative EPP and the liberal ALDE into camps suporting and rejecting the quota.

Finally, in October 2012 Commissioner Reding launched a proposal for a Directive on gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on stock exchanges and related measures.

The Commission's proposal is momentarily debated in the European Parliament and also in Council. Both, Germany and UK are leading the blocking minority in Council, thus avoiding further progress on the file