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EU countries continue to fail whistleblowers - Blog [1]

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Date: 2023-01

To ensure transposition did not result in weakening existing protection – as eleven EU countries already had dedicated whistleblower protection legislation prior to the adoption of EU-wide rules –the directive did include a non-regression clause. It also clearly stated that governments can go beyond its minimum standards by introducing or retaining provisions that are more favourable to whistleblowers. Governments are thus able to legislate beyond the minimum standards and introduce or retain provisions which are more advanced.

However, significant concerns have already been raised by whistleblower protection advocates that some provisions are potentially regressive.

Experts in Ireland highlighted how the new amendments could directly and indirectly reduce the level of protection already provided, especially the new criminal sanctions for ‘knowingly false reporting’, which could seriously dissuade genuine whistleblowers from considering speaking up. There are similar concerns in Romania that the new law has actually reduced whistleblowers rights by introducing new conditions to report information publicly – limits that did not exist under the previous law.

Even in France, where transposition has been particularly progressive, there are concerns that additional secrecy rules could reduce protection that was available under the previous regime. Absurdly, this would mean whistleblowers in these countries may now be less protected as a result of transposition of the directive than prior to its adoption.

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[1] Url: https://www.transparency.org/en/blog/eu-countries-continue-to-fail-whistleblowers

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