On February 17th, there was a meeting of the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumers Affairs (EPSCO) Council. On the agenda were action priorities in the areas of employment and social policies for 2012 and the basis of the 2012 Annual Growth Survey. A big point on this agenda was the possibility of introducing quota to improve the balance between men and women in decision making roles. The conclusion of this EPSCO Council meeting was that a majority of member states is strongly opposed to introducing such obligatory quota, despite their failure in self-regulating.

Viviane Reding, the Commissioner for Justice and Citizenship, called on companies in March 2011 to commit to promote gender equality, before considering measures at EU level. She asked companies to sign a pledge, committing to increase the proportion of women on their board by 30% by 2015 en 40% by 2020. Until now, only 23 companies have signed the pledge.

Most member states, however, wouldn't like to see binding European quota coming in place. They prefer voluntary self-regulation, an approach based on meritocracy, rather than on sanctions. Binding EU quota wouldn't be achievable, considering the socio-economic differences between the member states. Only Belgium, France and Italy were in favor of such a binding method.

Commissioner Reding, however, said put some pressure on the member states and said that the pledge system was her last attempt at a voluntary commitment and that if it failes to take off, she would have to try other methods.