102,514 of 125,000 signatures

To the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament

Petition

We urge you to protect whistleblowers in the EU by agreeing to a directive which includes:

  • the right to seek advice from a trade union and NGOs,
  • the right to be represented by a trade union
  • the right to contact law enforcement directly
  • safe disclosure to journalists
  • safeguards for existing national whistleblower laws; and
  • a broad whistleblower definition, with no extra test on how the reported information was acquired

Why is this important?

It is thanks to whistleblowers that the public found out about scandals like Lux-Leaks, the Panama and Paradise papers on tax evasion, Dieselgate on environment, as well as many scandals involving food safety, health and elderly care.

The fight for a strong protection for whistleblowers in the EU has been going on for many years. Trade unions and civil society have worked together with the European Parliament, demanding that the European Commission should act. After long and persistent lobbying and campaigning we finally got the European Commission to propose a directive on whistleblower protection in April 2018. While it marked a good starting point for discussions, improvements were clearly necessary. The European Parliament has improved the text and it is now up to their negotiations with the Council and Commission to agree on a good final text [1] which should include the following:

  • the right to contact law enforcement directly. Whistleblowers must be able to report directly to law enforcement agencies and competent authorities without risking losing protection. Not allowing it could lead to destruction of evidence and cover-ups when those responsible are alerted by internal reports. This means that the so called mandatory internal reporting in the directive must be deleted.
  • safe disclosure to journalists. Ensuring that whistleblowers safely can turn to journalists strengthens investigative journalism and is good for democracy.
  • safeguards for existing national whistleblower laws. This means adding a “non-regression clause”, a clause which guarantees that the directive cannot be used as an excuse to worsen already existing whistleblower protection laws and procedures.
  • a broad whistleblower definition, covering the likes of Antoine Deltour, LuxLeaks. This means that there should not be any extra test on how the information was acquired.

We’ve been fighting for years to gain strong protections for whistleblowers in the EU. After long and persistent campaigning, together let’s tell the EU to secure strong protections for whistleblowers.



[1] http://dsms.consilium.europa.eu/952/Actions/Newsletter.aspx?messageid=28047&customerid=32822&password=enc_705552374D31535337417667_enc

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Whistleblowers

We’ve been fighting for years to gain strong protections for whistleblowers in the EU.

After long and persistent campaigning, together we can finally secure strong protections for those who blow the whistle.

Can you donate just a few pounds a month to help our community continue to campaign to protect whistleblowers who save lives, the environment and fight corruption?

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