EU Quota Rule for Women on Boards Is the Only Way, Reding Says

Article here. Excerpt:

'European rules on quotas for women on company boards are necessary because businesses aren’t doing enough themselves, according to European Union Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding.

“I don’t like to intervene very strongly, but I thought it was the only way,” Reding said today in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I tried to do it first with asking the companies to do it by themselves. What was the result? Nothing.”

Reding set out draft legislation in November asking governments and the European Parliament to approve rules for a 40 percent quota to favor women over equally qualified men for supervisory board seats. She said today such legislation was needed as the population ages.

“What convinced me to go this way? We are an aging continent, not having enough new talent growing, and then 65 percent of our university graduates are female,” she said. “We do have the talent, we do have the competence, and we don’t make use of it in our societies. Sometimes you need political leadership in order to change the business world.”'