European Union debate due on women board quotas
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-20039540EU commissioners are due to debate proposals that would force quotas for women on corporate boards.
EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding is in favour of the proposals to make it mandatory for companies to reserve 40% of seats for women.
But several countries, including the UK, are opposed to it.
The debate comes after the European Parliament criticised the lack of female candidates for the European Central Bank (ECB).
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France has given fresh impetus to a European Commission plan to impose a 40 per cent female quota on listed company boards, becoming the first big country to back the move, which Britain is opposing.
In a two-page letter, seen by the Financial Times, Paris urged the Commission to press ahead with the draft legislation, which threatens to sanction companies that fail to boost the number of women on their boards.
“The French authorities … resolutely support the logic of this draft directive,” said the letter signed by Pierre Moscovici and Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, respectively France’s minister of finance and women’s rights.
Despite repeated efforts to allow companies to voluntarily increase the number of female board members, women account for less than 14 per cent of board positions in listed companies, according to EU data from January.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ba34eaae-0732-11e2-b148-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2A7mw7h6S
Those damn socialists in France and the EU. 
French socialists are willing to sacrifice national sovereignty to achieve progressive goals. And EU progressives are trying to force progressive policies on unwilling countries, especially Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands and Britain which signed a letter opposing the proposal.
