Malta had least number of women on company boards in 2013

Malta continues to have the least number of female company board members in Europe, at just 2% of all directors on the boards of publicly-listed companies.

The statistic was released in the European Commission’s annual report for 2013 on gender equality.

The EC wants to make it mandatory for large publicly-listed private and public companies to have boards composed of a minimum 40% of women directors.

EC vice-president Viviane Reding said that under current rates of progress, it will take almost 30 years to reach the EU’s target of 75% of women in employment, 70 years to make equal pay a reality and 20 years to achieve parity in national parliaments.

In 2012, MaltaToday had revealed how the Nationalist government was opposing the EU’s plans to force publicly-listed companies to have 40% of their boards of directors occupied by women.

But in 2013, Labour has not even improved female representation in the leaders and directors of the government’s top corporations, first flagged by this newspaper last year. Two publicly listed companies – Bank of Valletta and Malta International Airport – in which the State has a sizeable ownership, women in directors’ positions have dipped by a whopping 43%.

In 2012, MaltaToday found 29% of directors’ posts in 20 top corporations were women: under Labour, this occupancy has been practically halved to 16%.  Women disappeared from MIA plc’s board, Malta Government Investments, Malita plc and not installed on the new Public Broadcasting Services’ editorial board. They were whittled down to just one in the Water Services Corporation and Enemalta boards, while the only increase took place on the Gozo Channel board.

Joseph Muscat this year appointed Malta’s second ever woman to President of the Republic, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca. The former minister was replaced by a man, but a new female parliamentary secretary, Justyne Caruana, was appointed in a Cabinet reshuffle.

EU variations

There is considerable variation between Member States ranging from almost 30% of female board members in Finland to just over 2% in Malta. In October 2003, only Romania and Slovenia had governing boards made up of at least 20% female board members. Ten years on, ten Member States have surpassed this level and half of these have more than 25% female board members.

France leads the way in terms of recent progress. Since the introduction of a law in January 2011, under which companies have to ensure that members of each sex occupy at least 20% of non-executive director positions by 2014 and 40% by 2017, the proportion of women on the boards of companies on the CAC-40 index has more than doubled from 12.3% in October 2010 to 29.7% in October 2013.

National governments: women continue to be under-represented

On average, women still account for 27% of senior government ministers  across the EU. In Sweden, France, Finland, Denmark and Austria, governments include at least 40% of each gender; in six EU governments less than one in ten ministers are women (Greece, Slovakia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Estonia and Cyprus).

The average percentage of female ministers in the EU-28 countries has risen from 21% to 27% over the last decade. At this rate of change it will take more than 20 years to achieve balanced governments.

Women remain outnumbered by men by an average of three to one in national parliaments across the EU. In Cyprus, Malta, Romania and Hungary, women account for one in seven or fewer MPs. But Malta, with its three female MEPs out of six, has gender equality in the European Parliament.