(BRUSSELS) - Women's access to positions of power remain limited worldwide, according to a European study released Thursday which argued that only active policies to redress the problem could bring a swift improvement.

The new European Commission study shows that "women are still under-represented in all spheres of power, in most member states and in the EU institutions," said EU Equal Opportunities Commissioner Vladimir Spidla said.

"As progress in this field has been too slow, a more strategic action involving all stakeholders is needed to improve the situation," he added, while recognising that each nation must choose its own method of redressing the balance.

Last year just 17 percent of parliamentarians throughout the world were women, according to the report. Even that figure represented huge progress over the 10 percent rate registered in 1995.

Amongst those, in the 262 parliamentary chambers surveyed in 189 countries, only 30 were headed by women, said the report, published ahead of Saturday's International Women's Day.

Within EU parliaments 24 percent of the seats were filled by women, still below the 30 percent threshold deemed "the minimum necessary for women to exert meaningful influence on politics," according to the report.

Some national governments emerged from the survey as being significantly more women-friendly with a majority of women deputies in the Finnish and Norwegian administrations, 46 percent in Sweden and 41 percent in Spain.

Those rates contrasted sharply with the situation in Turkey, with just one female member of government and Romania with none at all.

The situation at the top of national central banks was found to be even less favourable to women.

The central banks in all 27 EU member states are headed by men.

Among business leaders men account for almost 90 percent of board members, according to the report, with little progress for women in recent years.

One noteworthy exception was Norway, where the government has taken "positive action" by requiring a 40 percent minimum of women on the governing boards of both public and private companies.

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