National governments must not block attempts to protect whistleblowers in Europe
Date
13 Dec 2018
Sections
Justice & Home Affairs
S&D MEPs have urged national ministers to swiftly adopt proposals to protect whistleblowers in the EU. The European Parliament last month backed a series of measures that will ensure those who expose unethical or illegal behaviour do not face repercussions.
S&D MEP and European Parliament negotiator for the protection of whistleblowers, Virginie Rozière, said:
“National governments are attempting water down the proposals put forward to protect whistleblowers. While we welcome the broad scope of the proposed instrument, we are now worried that member states will decide to reduce the initial ambition by splitting the proposal into several directives as a mean to exclude corporate taxation from the scope. This would be unacceptable! Many of the major scandals of the last few years, from Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica to LuxLeaks or the Panama Papers only became public because of brave individuals within organisations exposing illegal or unethical behaviour. We cannot accept any attempt to split or delay legislation designed to protect these whistleblowers.
“We urge national governments to stop caving to pressure from lobbyists for multinational companies and to act in the public interest. We cannot accept a situation where those that expose dodgy dealings are prosecuted, while those they expose suffer no consequences.
“Last month the European Parliament backed new powers that would protect whistleblowers from both legal and other forms of retribution. We ensured that those exposing breaches of health and safety regulations and other workers’ rights provisions would be covered by the agreement. These proposals will help protect the public interest and ensure that criminal and unethical behaviour is exposed. Surely that is something that national governments can rally behind?”