EU considers legislation on female board participation

The European Commission has announced that it will consider proposing legislation to increase women's participation on company boards if firms do not achieve significant progress in this area by March 2012. This position was supported in May 2011 by the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights.

According to the European Commission's database on "women and men in decision-making" (on the Europa website), in 2010 women made up only 12% of the members of the boards of Europe's 600 largest publicly listed companies, and just 3% of the chairs of these boards.