EU defends women on boards plans

14 November 2012 Last updated at 11:43 GMT Viviane Reding: "We did it ... this is a breakthrough initiative"

The European Commission has defended proposals for there to be at least 40% women non-executive directors on the boards of big listed companies by 2020.

Justice commissioner Viviane Reding postponed the launch of the policy last month, when EU lawyers warned quotas might not be enforceable.

The proposals require member states to decide what action to take against companies failing to reach the quota.

They need approval from the European Parliament and Council of Ministers.

Non-executive directors are members of a board who oversee its activities, but are not involved with its day-to-day activities.

'Breakthrough initiative'

The Commission said the proposals applied only to non-executives, "so as not to interfere with the freedom to conduct a business".

Mrs Reding called the proposals "a breakthrough initiative" and disputed the suggestion that they had been watered down and would not be enforced by member states.

"Member states who put the directive into national law have to foresee biting sanctions in order that the companies which do not apply the law can be forced into doing it," she told BBC News.

The directive will not apply to any company that employs fewer than 250 people, or to companies that are not listed on a stock exchange.

There has been much opposition to the proposals from some member states, including the UK.

"This new proposal from the EU appears to be the worst of both worlds," said Helen Wells from the gender equality campaign Opportunity Now.

"It seeks to impose a single numerical goal on companies, without any sense of where they are now or their existing commitments to action, but is not enforceable and so will be widely ignored."

Mrs Reding said she was confident that the proposals would have enough support to come into law in 2014.

Some campaigners were keen to see EU-wide sanctions such as fines against companies that failed to meet their quotas, but that has not been included in the proposals.

Mrs Reding pointed out that the document published on Wednesday was the first legal text to have appeared and so could not have been watered down.

Eleven EU member states already have laws to promote gender equality on company boards, but the Commission said it was important to have EU-wide regulation to avoid complications for multinational companies.

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