Germany to introduce legal quotas for women on company boards

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition has agreed a draft law requiring Germany's top listed companies to give women 30 percent of seats on non-executive boards from 2016, despite conservative misgivings and opposition from business.

Women occupy only seven percent of executive board seats among the 30 largest companies on Germany's blue-chip DAX index. They occupy barely 25 percent of non-executive board seats, according to the DIW economic think-tank although that is above the 20 percent European average for women, according to EU data.