Merkel’s female board quota plan meets resistance in business world
KEY business councils in Europe’s biggest economy face pressure to put women at the head of the nation’s powerful industry lobby groups. But when the German Employers’ Association (BDA) met on Thursday, it elected Rainer Dulger as its new - male - president.
The 56 year-old Dulger’s election at a meeting of employer federation members in Berlin came less than a week after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition agreed to set a fixed quota for the number of women in board positions on publicly listed companies.
But woman appear rather under-represented in leadership positions in the nation’s top industry lobby groups, with the business councils having already signalled resistance to Berlin’s new Frauenquote (women’s quota) for corporate board roles.
The BDA supports the “goal of the political debate to have more diversity, also in the management of large companies,” the employers’ federation said in comments to the German business daily Handelsblatt.
But, the employers said a statutory quota regulating management of board membership could impact on corporate structures in a “constitutionally questionable manner.
“If there are no such candidates or they are not willing to take on a corresponding position, a development desired by society and above all by companies cannot be enforced by law,” the BDA said.
Merkel told a meeting of government lawmakers on Tuesday that the agreement on a quota system was not only “reasonable and feasible”, but it was also something she could wholeheartedly support, sources told dpa.
Under the government’s plans unveiled last week, publicly listed companies that have an equal representation of stock holders and employees on the board, and a minimum of three board members, must have at least one female member.
But echoing the BDA’s views, Iris Ploeger, a member of the Federaton of German Industry’s (BDI) management team, called for the government to consider “a balanced compromise” in drawing up guidelines for the proposed quota.
Ploeger described the introduction of the quota system as “a particular challenge for industry” and representing “a major encroachment on entrepreneurial freedom.” Women have 8.7 per cent of the 160 board posts of German companies registered on the nation’s three national stock market indexes, according to a report by the professional services group EY.
The next major test of how the business groups will respond to the new quota system is likely to come in March, when members of Germany’s chamber of trade and commerce (DIHK) elect a new chief to take over from its long-running president, Eric Schweizer.
However, Peter Adrian, who chairs the Triwo property group and heads up the DIHK’s Trier chapter in south-western Germany, was nominated on Wednesday by a special committee to take over from Schweizer in overseeing the DIHK’s 79 offices across Germany.
The BDI, comprising about 40 industry branch associations, is also expected to shortly begin the task of finding a new president to take over from Dieter Kempf.
But of the BDI’s nine vice presidents, only two are women - Hildegard Mueller, who this year began a term as head of the German car industry federation (VDA), and Ingeborg Newmann, from the Confederation of the German Textile and Fashion Industry.
Angeligue Renkhoff-Muecke is the only the woman among the BDA’s eight vice presidents.
German media had speculated that Renkhoff-Muecke, who chairs the board of Warema, a leading European awnings manufacturer and a member of Germany’s key small-to-medium sized business sector (Mittelstand), might be in the running for the BDA’s top post.
But in the end, the BDA members backed the no-nonsense Dulger to help give the group a sharper profile in the run-up to September’s national German election and the formation of a new government, following Merkel’s planned retirement.
Dulger has, since 2012, been the head of the nation’s metal and engineering industry employers association Gesamtmetall, which covers companies comprising a total of more than 2.3 million employees. He was a BDA vice president.
Like Renkhoff-Muecke, Dulger also hails from Germany’s Mittelstand, which is seen as the backbone of the nation’s economy.
The 56-year-old Dulger and his brother head a family-run company, ProMinent, producing pumps in the south-western German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The company employs 2,700 people worldwide.
German chancellor’s ruling coalition have backed a fixed quota for woman on publicly listed corporate boards. But will the nation’s powerful business lobby groups set an example for the rest of industry by backing women for top leadership posts?