HOW WELL DO EU COUNTRIES PROTECT WHISTLEBLOWERS?

Whistleblowers play an essential role in exposing corruption and other wrongdoing that threaten the public interest. By disclosing information about such misdeeds, whistleblowers have helped save countless lives and billions of euros in public funds. Whistleblowers often put themselves at high personal risk. They may be fired, sued, blacklisted, arrested, threatened or, in extreme cases, assaulted or killed. Protecting whistleblowers from unfair treatment, including retaliation, discrimination or disadvantage, can empower people to report wrongdoing, which increases the likelihood that wrongdoing is prevented, uncovered and penalised.

Whistleblower protection is therefore a key means of enhancing enforcement of legislation.

To protect whistleblowers from retribution, a strong legal framework is an important precondition. Until 2019, only 11 member states of the European Union (EU) offered comprehensive legal protection to whistleblowers, and even in these countries, loopholes remained and enforcement was lacking.1

To address this issue, in 2019, after several years of advocacy from civil society, the European Union adopted the “Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law” (the Whistleblower Protection Directive). The directive contains many ground-breaking provisions. For instance, it prohibits retaliation against whistleblowers, safeguards their identities in most circumstances and offers them several reporting avenues. It sets obligations for many organisations to create internal reporting channels and requires companies, public institutions and authorities who receive information on wrongdoing to follow up on these reports. However, the directive also contains a number of loopholes and weaknesses.2

The 27 EU member states had until 17 December 2021 to comply with the directive. Most of them did not meet the deadline, with several adopting laws to transpose the directive only this year. Estonia and Poland have yet to do so. This position paper reviews the whistleblower protection laws in 20 of the 25 EU member states that have adopted such laws,3 assessing whether they comply with the minimum requirements of the directive and best practice in selected areas.4

Most of these laws have been adopted quite recently, and this paper does not look at their application in practice.