Gold Magazine November - December 2013, Issue 32 | Page 93

women

{TAX&LEGAL}

E

U-listed companies should
aim to ensure that at least
40% of their non-executive board members are
women by 2020, so as to
promote gender equality in economic decisionmaking, according to draft rules proposed by
the European Commission and backed by the
European Parliament’s Women’s Rights and
Gender Equality and Legal Affairs committees
last month. In 2012, only 15% of nonexecutive board members of the EU’s largest
companies were women.
“Today’s vote on the joint report by the
Women’s Rights and Legal Affairs committees
sends a strong call for EU legislation to step
up women’s membership of, and participation
in, the boards of listed companies. What is
currently a reality in some EU member states
will soon be extended to the single market as
a whole and all EU listed companies, thereby
making the most of the talents of many qualified and highly skilled women”, said Greek
MEP Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou.
“It is important that the directive should be
broad in scope and that many listed companies
are required to use the open and transparent
procedure when selecting their non-executive
directors,” said Austrian rapporteur Evelyn
Regner. “We do not have an exemption for
family enterprises or specific sectors but we
have strengthened the penalties that member
states should apply when companies do not
fulfil the directive’s requirements. Now, it is up
to the Council to agree a common position so
that negotiations between the Council and
Parliament, as co-legislators, can start”, she
added.

MEPs backed a Commission proposal to
ensure gender balance on boards for publiclylisted companies. They called on them to
ensure that at least 40% of their non-executive
board members represent the under-represented sex. Listed companies would have until
2020 to reach the target while public companies should do so by 2018.
According to the draft proposal, the rules
approved would not apply to small and medium-sized enterprises. However, MEPs encouraged member states to support SMEs and
provide incentives to improve gender balance
on their boards too. They further proposed
that these rules should also apply to companies
where less than 10% of workforce is of the
under-represented sex.
MEPs called for a transparent, open and
meritocratic recruitment procedure in which
gender balance is borne in mind throughout.
Where candidates are equally well qualified,
priority should go to the candidate of the
under-represented sex, at every stage of this
procedure. MEPs stress that qualifications and
merit must remain the key criteria.
Companies that fail to abide by the rules
will be required to explain why to the competent national authorities in member states
and describe the measures taken and planned

MEPS STRESS THAT
QUALIFICATIONS AND MERIT
MUST REMAIN THE KEY
RECRUITMENT CRITERIA
to achieve it in future. Penalties, such
as fines, should be imposed for failing to
follow transparent and open appointment

MEPs call for
more women on
company boards
TARGET SET OF 40% BY 2020.

procedures, rather than for failing to achieve
the target. MEPs propose that “exclusion from
public calls for tenders” should be added to the
list of possib