Voluntary female quotas do not work, Norway says

Voluntary quotas for women on the boards of publicly listed companies, as proposed by the EU commission, do not work, with legally-binding ones needed, a Norwegian official has said on the basis of the Nordic country's leading experience in the area.

"In Norway, we were not able to make a difference with the voluntary approach," public administration minister Rigmor Aasrud told EUobserver in an interview.

She recalled that Norway's Conservative government in 2003 told companies t...