On December 8, 2016, the European Commission published a report on benchmarking of diversity practices under the CRD IV Directive (2013/36/EC).

Article 161(5) of the CRD IV Directive requires the Commission to review and report to the Council of the EU and the European Parliament on the results reached under the diversity benchmarking, including the appropriateness of benchmarking diversity practices.

The Commission discusses the EBA’s report and reaches the conclusion that:

1. It would not be useful at this stage to envisage putting forward a legislative proposal to amend the provisions of the CRD IV Directive diversity provisions, given that it is satisfied with the added value of the benchmarking diversity practices;
2. There is still considerable room for improvement both in having diversity policies in place and achieving greater diversity of the management bodies of institutions;
3. The majority of the sampled institutions were not compliant with the CRD IV Directive requirement of putting in place a policy promoting the diversity of their management bodies; and
4. The majority of the institutions that had set a gender diversity target had not yet met it or had not set a timeline for doing so (or both).