MEPs approved a bill on Tuesday that will require all publicly listed companies in the EU to increase female representation in top roles by 2026.
This specifies that 40% of non-executive director posts must go to the "under-represented sex" (normally women) for companies of at least 250 employees. The EU also aims for 33% of senior roles to go to women, including non-executive directors and directors.
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola hailed the bill as "a short piece of legislation but one that has been 10 years in the making." The European Commission first presented its proposal in 2012 but it was blocked in the European Council for almost a decade due to opposition from big Member States Germany and the United Kingdom.
Female representation
In 2021, only 30.6% of board members in the EU were women, though this disguises huge disparities between Member States. France has introduced a quota of 40% women on boards and 45.3% of its boardroom seats were occupied by women, according to European Parliament data. At the other end of the scale is Cyprus with just 8.5% of women on its boards.
"There are more CEOs called Pieter in the Netherlands than there are women in boards," said Dutch MEP Lara Walter, one of the bill's lead negotiators, at a Parliament press conference.
"In the ten years that this Directive sat on the shelf, boardrooms remained predominantly the realm of men," she added. "But in those countries where binding quotas were introduced, considerably more women were appointed. "
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National authorities will be responsible for implementing and enforcing the directive, with fines for those that fail to comply with the legally-binding target. Judicial bodies can even dissolve boardrooms if a company don't move towards gender equality.
"We are finally giving women a fair chance to be in top corporate positions and improving corporate governance," said MEP Evelyn Regner, one of the file's other lead negotiators. "Women are innovative, smart, strong, and capable. We are removing one of the main barriers for women to get the 'top jobs': informal male networks."
"I hope we have managed to create a crack in the glass ceiling," Metsola concluded.
