Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-07-05-Speech-2-815-000"
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"en.20110705.43.2-815-000"2
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"Mr President, gender equality is a fundamental right and it is one of the fundamental principles of the EU. Gender equality is also a condition for economic growth, social inclusion and well-being in our societies. The under-exploited pool of well educated women represents real untapped potential for the EU economy, especially at a time when human capital is a key factor in terms of our competitiveness and when, as a society, we are ageing.
EU Member States might be very different, as the rapporteur has said, but they face a common challenge: the under-representation of women in high-level decision making, in particular in the corporate sector, is a reality almost everywhere.
I know that there are fierce debates about voluntary agreements versus binding quotas. I know too that there are five EU Member States which have followed the Norwegian example and have introduced binding measures to increase the number of women in business leadership. No later than last week, two Member States, Belgium and Italy, adopted legislation to impose gender quotas in business leadership. Irrespective of the solution found in individual Member States – and we know that there are other Member States that have binding quotas for state-owned companies, or general voluntary agreements – one thing that is clear is the business case for gender equality.
This evening and tomorrow at voting time, Parliament will, I hope, take a strong position on this important issue. I thank Vice-President Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulo for her efforts to bring the European Parliament into this debate and for her bold report, and I would also like to thank the members of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, who backed her almost unanimously.
Why, in the European Union, do women constitute 60% of university graduates but only 12% on the boards of the largest publicly listed companies, and only 3% among the presidents of those boards? The question is: can Europe afford this? The answer is no, and it is not simply my answer. It is the answer from studies commissioned by businesses such as McKinsey and Deutsche Bank, indicating that there is a positive correlation between the presence of women in senior positions and company performance.
So gender-diverse boards improve corporate governance and, from a micro-economic perspective, companies that have introduced gender diversity on their boards can also mirror the diversity of their employees and customers. By the way, 80% of purchasing decisions are made by women so it is an advantage to have women on the board, and there is a business case for increasing their involvement in management and corporate decision making.
The Commission is determined to advance gender equality further. You know about our strategy and you also know I have made it very clear that ‘Women on the board’ should be one of the aims we pursue. That is why, in March this year, I brought together the CEOs and board chairs of big publicly listed companies to discuss possible ways forward. I wanted to give self-regulation a last chance, and I have encouraged companies to develop credible self-regulatory initiatives to make significant progress.
I have called on the EU’s publicly listed companies to sign the ‘Women on the board’ pledge for Europe and voluntarily to increase women’s presence on corporate boards to 30% by 2015 and 40% by 2020. After one year – i.e. in March next year – I will see which and how many companies have signed up to the pledge. I will assess the situation to see if there has been significant progress and if we have credible commitments. I hope the answer will be yes. Should it be no – should there be insufficient progress with self-regulation – then the Commission will explore policy options for targeted measures to enhance female participation in decision making.
For me what counts is the end result, and the direction that Parliament takes tomorrow with this vote will undoubtedly be a very strong source of inspiration: not only for the Commission but also, I hope, for the corporate world."@en1
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