Agreement on the whistleblower directive
In the night between the 11 and 12 March the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on the EU whistleblower protection directive. The last difficult battle was on the reporting channels, which has also been top of our advocacy agenda together with the platform WhistleblowerProtection.EU. In a first comment Eurocadres welcomed the provisional agreement.
Both the Council and the Commission wanted to require internal reporting first. The Parliament did not give in on the issue and the agreement now secures protection also when going directly to a competent authority, without first reporting to the employer.
In a first comment to the agreement, Martin Jefflén, President of Eurocadres said:
–Eurocadres welcomes the provisional agreement on the whistleblower protection directive. It is good to see that whistleblowers will finally get the protection they have long deserved. We have worked hard to remove the bad idea to require reporting to the employer before to a competent authority. We are very pleased this is now gone.
–Eurocadres welcomes the provisional agreement on the whistleblower protection directive. It is good to see that whistleblowers will finally get the protection they have long deserved. We have worked hard to remove the bad idea to require reporting to the employer before to a competent authority. We are very pleased this is now gone.
Eurocadres does acknowledge that the right to contact competent authorities directly, is an important improvement, from earlier drafts of the directive. The likelihood of evidence being destroyed or covered up after initial reporting, has now been significantly diminished. The removal of mandatory internal reporting has been a key demand of the whistleblower protection alliance which has faced hard resistance both from Council and Commissions, so getting rid of this from the directive is a big achievement.
Much of the advocacy work by Eurocadres has been carried out in cooperation with trade unions and civil society organisations in the platform WhistleblowerProtection.EU, which was initiated by Eurocadres in 2016.
‘As founder of the WhistleblowerProtection.EU platform, it is rewarding to see that all our joint advocacy work to better protect whistleblowers and to make it easier to report, has finally borne fruit. ‘
‘As founder of the WhistleblowerProtection.EU platform, it is rewarding to see that all our joint advocacy work to better protect whistleblowers and to make it easier to report, has finally borne fruit. ‘
The agreement is provisional and awaiting adoption by the Council and by the Parliament. The agreement will be decided upon in Friday’s Council’s Permanent representatives Committee (Coreper II) and next week’s legal affairs (JURI) Committee meeting of the European Parliament as well as the April plenary of the Parliament.
‘The final text is not yet ready why a final assessment cannot be made of the complete package, but we know enough to state that we welcome the directive. There will undoubtedly be issues remaining where we would have wanted stronger texts.‘
Last week on Monday 4 March, Eurocadres handed over a petition conducted together with WeMove.EU demanding the removal of mandatory internal reporting. Over 100.000 signatures were gathered in just 29 days, to compare with just over 80.000 in a whole year for the previous one.
Timetable for the next few days:
Today - Tuesday 12 March
9.30 Press conference with Virginie Rozière (S&D and Parliament rapporteur), Pascal Durand (Greens/EFA) and Jean-Marie Cavada (ALDE). Live streamed here.
Technical meeting, trilogue. Remaining issues to agree on.
Wednesday 13 March
Text should be ready, possibly by noon, latest in the evening.
Friday 15 March
COREPER II, the Council permanent representatives agree to the text.
Next week (18-22 March)
JURI, the Legal affairs committee of the European Parliament agrees to the text.
17 April
Indicative date for the plenary vote in the European Parliament.