The European Commission will push for a quota for women on company boards to address the slow progress on gender equality in senior positions with publicly listed businesses. The Commission's plan calls on companies whose non-executive directors are more than 60% male to prioritise women in hiring for positions where candidates are of equal merit. Previous attempts by EU policy-makers to push a goal of 40% women at the top were resisted by Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, citing overreach by Brussels into national affairs.