Women at the top, two thirds of countries in compliance

There is another European directive that aims to strengthen gender equality and has had a parallel path (at least chronologically) to the directive on pay transparency. It is the EU directive 2022/2381, known as the 'women on boards directive'. It stipulates that by 30 June 2026 (the date scheduled for transposition by member states), in large listed companies the less represented gender must occupy at least 40% of non-executive directorships, or at least 33% of the total number of directors (executive and non-executive). The monitoring carried out by Ius Laboris - an international alliance of labour law specialists of which the law firm Toffoletto De Luca Tamajo is one of the founding members - reveals that 18 EU countries out of 27 (67%) have already adapted their local legislation and six are in the process of implementation. Only three countries (Latvia, Malta Hungary) have not initiated any action. Among the countries that have already implemented the contents of the directive is Italia, which had long since adopted legislation deemed suitable to meet EU objectives. The Golfo-Mosca law (120/2011) had introduced the obligation for listed and publicly controlled companies to reserve at least one third of the seats on their boards for the least represented gender. A framework reinforced with the Budget Law 2020 (160/2019, Article 1, paragraphs 302 et seq.), which raised the quota to 40 per cent and extended its application to several consecutive mandates. According to the latest Consob data, at the end of 2024, the share of directorships held by women was stable at 43%, which is higher than the two-fifths requirement of the law 160/2019.

"The two directives on salary transparency and gender balance in boards," explains lawyer Ornella Patané, partner at Toffoletto De Luca Tamajo, "as well as the legislation on gender equality certification and the obligation of the biannual report on the personnel situation, run on parallel tracks, but perhaps a common direction would be needed to coordinate all these interventions. These are regulations that push companies to review their organisational models and offer an opportunity for modernisation. However, it must be emphasised,' adds Ornella Patané, 'that the decree transposing the directive on wage transparency launched by the government has some divergent aspects with respect to the text of the directive.