Controversial EU proposals to impose gender parity quotas for company boardrooms will now not be debated until next month, after the plans met with opposition and lawyers’ threats that they could be considered illegal.

EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding, who has been the driving force behind the planned legislation, said yesterday via twitter on @VivianeRedingEU: “I will not give up”, and claimed that EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso would bring the issue back to the table by the end of November.

The quota proposals have generally been met with opposition from the recruitment and business communities, although in February UK Prime Minister David Cameron refused to rule the measure out.

Similarly, Norwegian businesswoman Elin Hurvenes, founder and chair of advocacy group the Professional Boards Forum, told Recruiter earlier this year that when quotas where first introduced in her home nation, they were “very unpopular”. She adds: “I don't really recall any people who spoke out in favour of it.

"But today I must take my hat off to the Norwegian business community," she continues, who adopted the quotas and have progressed to a point where today "they feel the boardroom discusssion are better, and they conclude that the decisions are better”.