3.2.2 Gender provision in the Belgian Corporate Governance Code

The Belgian Corporate Governance Code (BCGC) has been in place since 2004. Principle 2.1 of the revised 2009 BCGC stipulated that the board composition of listed companies ‘should be determined on the basis of gender diversity and diversity in general’.1 The 2009 BCGC did not prescribe specific gender targets for companies.2 In 2011, the Belgian Corporate Governance Committee recommended including a target figure of 30 percent in the BCGC, with the intention that the target would be met by 2018.3 However, due to the adoption of mandatory gender quota in Belgian law in 2011, the recommendation became obsolete. Consequently, when the BCGC was amended in 2020, no target figure was included as a quota provision was, by that time, already provided for by law.