“I DON'T like quotas, but I like what quotas do,” says Viviane Reding, the European Union's justice commissioner. A year ago she invited publicly listed firms to sign a pledge to increase the proportion of women on their boards to 30% by 2015 and 40% by 2020. If there was no significant progress within a year, she said at the time, “you can count on my regulatory creativity.” So far only 24 firms have signed.

So on March 5th Ms Reding (pictured) announced the launch of a three-month public consultation to ask what kind of measures the EU should take to get more women into boardrooms. The commission will then decide on further action later this year. There is no mention of quotas yet, but the consultation document seems to be paving the road to them. Among other things, it asks: “Which objectives (eg, 20%, 30%, 40%, 60%) should be defined for the share of the underrepresented sex?”

Only 13.7% of board members of large firms in the EU are women, up from 8.5% in 2003. Female presidents and chairwomen are even rarer: just 3.2% of the total now, compared with 1.6% in 2003. Women account for 60% of new graduates in the EU, and enter many occupations in roughly equal numbers with men. But with every step up the ladder more of them drop out, and near the top they almost disappear.

Plenty of research suggests that companies with lots of women in senior positions are more successful than those without (even if there is no proof of a causal relationship). So it seems to make sense to get more women on boards. But how?

Norway, which is not a member of the EU, introduced a quota for women on boards a decade ago, which catapulted their share from 9% in 2003 to the required 40% now. Several EU countries have recently followed suit. France brought in legislation just over a year ago under which listed and large unlisted companies must reserve at least 20% of board seats for members of each sex by 2014 and 40% by 2017. This has boosted the number of women on French boards from 12% to 22%. Italy and Belgium have mandated a minimum one-third representation. Spain and the Netherlands have introduced new laws, but without stiff penalties. Germany is debating quotas. Some European countries regulate the sex balance on the boards of state-owned companies. Rules vary, but opinion seems to be converging on a near-term target of 25-30% and a longer-term one of 40%.

Europe's population at large seems to be all for it. A special Eurobarometer poll commissioned by Ms Reding's directorate-general, published this week, found that three-quarters were in favour of laws to ensure sex balance on boards. More than four respondents out of ten thought that a 50% share for women would be realistic.