{"id":30531,"title":"Women On Boards!","link":"https:\/\/bst-europe.eu\/de\/miscellaneous\/women-on-boards\/","date":"24. Juni 2022","date_unix":1656077793,"date_modified_unix":1754483400,"date_iso":"2022-06-24T13:36:33+00:00","content":"

The Lisbon Treaty<\/a> and the Charter of Fundamental Rights<\/a> came into force in 2010. They both foresee the non-discrimination of gender in general and in the workplace specifically (art. 19 of the Treaty; art. 21 and 23 of the Charter).<\/p>\n

Some of the problems I was confronted with as I took over as Commission Vice-President, responsible for justice and equality, was: how to avoid a further drop in female participation at the professional decision-making level? How to avoid the drastic loss of capacity, knowing that young women, on average in the EU, represented 60% of university graduates but only 14% of board positions and had 7% of management responsibility?<\/p>\n

How to avoid a waste of experience and talent, at a moment when society and economy were in dire need of these, confronted with baby-boomer age groups moving into retirement. Experts (from Deutsche Bank, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs and others) had calculated that companies with solid female participation in management and top-decision-making achieved better financial results than all-male-structures. Despite these findings, old boy networks blocked the female talent, reinforced the glass ceiling and led to a drop-out of female professionals, who – in the absence of role models \u2013 gave up their future career possibilities at an early stage.<\/p>\n

The political decision to achieve a break-through was a legal proposal aimed at:<\/p>\n