MEPs reinforce protection for whistleblowers in proposed EU directive
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomes the significant improvements to the European Commission’s proposed directive on whistleblowers that were approved today by the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs. The committee’s amendments would increase protection for whistleblowers throughout the European Union and would reinforce their right to go straight to the media with information. It is now up to the European Council to approve the proposed EU directive.
“The MEPs have significantly expanded the range of circumstances in which whistleblowers can turn directly to the media without first using internal or external reporting channels,” said Julie Majerczak, RSF’s representative to the European institutions. “This is essential both to protect them and to protect the freedom to inform and the right to information in the public interest. The importance of the role that whistleblowers play in exposing activities prejudicial to the public interest has repeatedly been confirmed in recent years in such affairs as the Panama Papers, LuxLeaks and the Mediator case in France. It is therefore vital to provide whistleblowers with the broadest possible protection when they alert public opinion via the media. The decision to go through journalists, who are in a position to verify the facts of a case, should even be seen as a sign of good faith on the whistleblower’s part.”
Under the amended version of the proposed directive (which was adopted by 22 votes to none against, with one abstention), whistleblowers would be allowed to go directly to the media if they had reasonable grounds for believing they could not use internal or external reporting channels because of, for example, a manifest or imminent danger, a threat to the public interest, or special circumstances such as collusion, the implication of the relevant authorities or the danger of destruction of evidence. Furthermore, the list of circumstances in which whistleblowers could go straight to the media is open-ended. The version proposed by the European Commission was very restrictive, limiting the circumstances to an imminent and manifest danger or a risk of irreversible damage.
RSF nonetheless regrets that the version approved by the Legal Affairs Committee restricts what whistleblowers are allowed to report to illegal activities and abuse of law. This significantly weakens protection for whistleblowers. The directive should cover activities prejudicial or potentially prejudicial to the public interest in general.
RSF also welcomes these changes:
- The directive’s scope is extended by means of a non-exhaustive list of European laws whose violation could be the subject of whistleblower reporting.
- Protection is provided not only to whistleblowers but also to the colleagues who help them and to journalists.
- There is increased protection against retaliatory measures, including gag orders.
The ball is now in the court of the Council of the European Union, consisting of EU member states. RSF urges the Council to accept the amendments approved by the MEPs, in particular, the protection for whistleblowers going directly to the media. It is also vital that the Council should take a decision by the end of the year, so that the directive’s final adoption can take place before the European elections.
