Whitsleblowers like Antoine Deltour, Zuzana Hlávková and Andrea Franzoso have all faced great personal and professional ramifications by exposing corruption and wrong doing in the public interest.
Whistleblower protection legislation remains the exception rather than the rule in the EU. Most Member States do not have dedicated legislation in place, and even in the few countries where such laws do exist, they usually leave significant loopholes and fall short of good practice.
As a result, European citizens remain largely unprotected in case they take the decision to speak up, facing the risk of retaliation, judicial proceedings and dismissal. This, in turn, leaves suspected cases of fraud, corruption and other malpractice unattended – a huge potential to fight such practices is lost.
For these reasons we are advocating for the European Commission to come forward for a horizontal legislative proposal for an EU directive on whistleblower protection. The European Parliament has also echoed this call, as well as more than 81,000 citizens.
Now is the time for the EU to bring forward comprehensive legal protection for whistleblowers that which to expose the truth.
Transparency International EU along with partners hand over 81,000 signatures of citizens who demand EU-wide whistleblower protection to the European Commission on November 14th 2017.
