The European Commission announced in March 2020 that it will launch a five-year gender equality strategy. It will revive plans for mandatory quotas of women on company boards, amid slowing progress towards gender equality among top management. The EU commissioner for equality, Helena Dalli, said that quotas “can be a very ugly word” but were also “a necessary evil, in the sense we have to use quotas because otherwise we will wait another 100 years for things to change by themselves”.

Under a 2012 draft directive, European-listed companies would face fines if they failed to ensure that at least 40% of their non-executive board seats were taken by women. But the proposal ran into opposition from central and northern European Member Sates and has since been stuck in the Council.

EU officials point to the experience of countries that have introduced binding quotas, such as France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, which has led to a rapid increase of women in the boardroom.