Boardrooms of State-run companies will no longer be all-men affairs after March 9 as women quotas will come into force whichever party is elected.
While the PL has long been openly in favour of quotas, the PN has taken a longer time to embrace the issue, and in 2004 Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi even argued against them.
The PN’s electoral programme states: “Government boards and entities must have 40 per cent female representation and private companies will be urged to do the same by 2020.” Back in 2004, Dr Gonzi had told The Times: “I do not believe in quotas and I consider them to be a certificate of failure. I fear that if we opt to introduce quotas we would be choosing the easy way out... We have to emphasise women’s abilities first, before reserving posts for them.”
When asked by The Times yesterday what led to the party’s change of heart Dr Gonzi said. “This is not a U-Turn. What we were against was that this would be imposed on us by someone,” he said referring to the European Commission’s drive to get more women on company boards by imposing EU-wide quotas on public-listed companies.
An exercise carried out by The Times last April found that in the 19 companies on the Malta Stock Exchange, just three out of the 138 directors listed were women: the lowest average across the entire EU.
Although the PN has not embraced the Commission’s recommendations for the public listed companies, if elected all boards of Government-owned companies will need to implement the 40 per cent quota.
“The problem will be those Government boards where the members are appointed by the social partners – you go to a Malta Council for Social and Economic Development and there is not even one woman present. The MCSD has to realise it has to lead by example,” he said.
Dr Gonzi also highlighted the fact that internally the PN had long practised the principle of quotas.
In an interview with The Sunday Times last month, former Playmobil CEO Helga Ellul spoke out against female quotas, saying not all women were suitable to serve on boards.
“If there are quotas in place they should be linked to (people’s) profile. The worst part for women is if they are on boards and give women a bad name.”